Zastruga
by Solemini
Summary: Jack Frost has spent three hundred years in the care of Pitch Black, hidden away from a world that neither sees nor wants him. What happens, then, when Pitch finally brings him out of the darkness for a shot at the legendary Guardians? AU Fic, canon divergence, etc.
1. Prologue: Eclipse

I have no idea where I'm going with this. :| Next chapter picks up in around the approximate era of the movie so, uh, ideas are welcome. Just don't expect too many ships, okay?

**Zastruga**

**Prologue: Eclipse**

The evening of his rebirth was cold and clear and beautiful. By the full moon's guiding light, the boy rose through the ice and into the air. For a moment, he hung suspended on a moonbeam. Then, he lowered gently to the surface of the frozen lake, where the cold north wind breathed life into his lungs.

The Man in the Moon smiled down at the world's newest immortal. How rare it was to find a human with a heart so strong, and rarer still in one so young and unfamiliar with the ways of magic. There could be no doubt that this boy possessed something of which the world's children were in desperate need. Someday, he would become their great ally – a Guardian.

But not yet. He needed time to grow, to learn of himself and of children, of the world around them and of his own immortality. And so, as his newborn spirit woke for the first time, the Man in the Moon sent a message of welcome down on a moonbeam and with it, the spirit's name.

In that moment, a shadow fell.

A spindly hand, made from the kind of fear that turns tree branches into claws, closed around the boy-spirit's name and plucked its message from the air. The teen, lost in his surroundings and in discovering the staff that would give him power, noticed nothing.

Pitch Black, the Lord of Nightmares, drew his hand back into the shadows and held the message close to his heart. As his golden eyes watched the wandering spirit, he whispered to the moon, "Tell me, old friend. Did you think me so weak that I would not notice your little games?"

The moonlight flickered. Pitch chose to believe that the little man within was shaking, possibly in fear and possibly in fury. Before any more messages could come through, shadows disguised as clouds blocked the gleaming orb from view.

As the light vanished the boy on the frozen lake turned on the spot, searching for a reason why. The end of his staff struck the ice, scattering a trail of fern-patterned frost that sparkled even in the dimness that remained.

Pitch chose this moment to appear, right where the trail came to its end. He gave the spirit a smile as thin as a razor blade and delivered his stolen message. "Hello, Jack Frost."

Jack – as he was therefore named – glanced one way and then the other before finally coming back to Pitch, his eyebrows knotted in confusion. "You…are you talking to me? What's with that weird name?"

Pitch raised a curious eyebrow. "It's yours. Do you not remember?"

The boy didn't need to answer. From the way he pursed his lips, it was all too clear. Was this what happened to humans as they died? Or had the Man in the Moon, in some misguided attempt at kindness, made it all too easy for Pitch to lead this child astray?

The razor-smile spread further. Pitch closed the distance between them, extending his hand. "No matter. I'm here to help you, Jack. Come along now. Everything will be all right."

As he advanced, Jack backed away, his shoulders hunched, his staff raised, and his bare feet steady along the ice. Keen instincts, Pitch noted. Perhaps the child could smell Fear.

The dimness wavered as the moonlight struggled against his darkness. There would not be much time. Without warning, Pitch lunged for the boy, intent on dragging him into the shadows, but to his surprise Jack proved quicker. He darted under the Nightmare King's grasping hands and flew across the ice, his staff leaving a trail of frost and snowflakes in its wake.

In seconds, he reached the end of the lake and, before Pitch could so much as move, shot straight up on burst of icy wind. Moments later, he'd vanished over the trees.

* * *

It was not a move that Jack had been expecting.

All he'd tried to do was jump onto the shore. That's all. But he'd caught the wind, shooting up through the sky like a rocket. For a few split seconds he was paralyzed with fear. Then excitement swelled. He whooped and cheered, urging the wind to carry him higher, higher, further, and then…

Without warning, the wind was gone. Jack dropped like a rock, right into the branches of an ancient tree. He bounced off three of them before one finally caught, his staff clutched in the crook of his arm. He lay there a moment, his cheek pressed into the bark, gasping for breath and trying to make sense of what had just happened. He couldn't decide whether to be afraid or exhilarated and finally settled on both.

When he got the air back in his lungs, he sat up and spotted lights not too far away. Firelights, the lights of a village, of human beings. Good, he could finally ask someone what was going on. Someone who wasn't made of creepy.

Jack – he decided it was better to have a strange name than none at all – leapt from branch to branch through trees until he finally reached the village, swinging out of a pine and into the dirt path. Like everything else since the clouds came in, the town was dark, though people moved from lantern light to lantern light as though it didn't matter.

On every corner, grown-ups talked business while their children played in open roads. Jack beamed with relief and approached the first woman he saw. "Excuse me!"

She hurried on her way without so much as a look. Jack tried again, this time with a passing man, but was again rebuffed. The third time he stopped a preacher and got the same result. So much for being a good Samaritan. Perhaps they didn't like strangers?

As a last-ditch effort, Jack knelt in front of a pair of children running after their dog. "Hey, sorry," he said, beaming as the ran his way. "But can you guys tell me where I…"

The dog ran straight through him.

Jack was so shocked by this turn of events that he didn't even move. Then the girl passed him, racing through his body like a breeze, followed closely by her brother, who didn't even register. Jack jolted upright, failed to regain his footing, and fell straight through the two men talking grimly on the corner. He rolled away from them, only to be walked over – no, walked _through_, like a puddle – by a woman in heels.

Clutching his staff, Jack dragged himself from the muddy streets and stumbled into the space between two houses. He clutched a windowsill for balance, his mind reeling. They couldn't see him. He was invisible, no, more than invisible – he was non-existent. But that was impossible. He was here, he thought, he moved, he breathed. So why couldn't they see?

He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window and tried to rein his ragged breathing back under control. When he finally managed it, he heard something on the other side of the glass: quiet, tired sobbing, as though someone wanted desperately to sleep but could not do so because of her tears.

Jack peered into the window, his very presence conjuring a layer of frost disturbed only by his hands. Inside the room, a little girl with long, straight brown hair was curled on her bed, tucked in a blanket and crying quietly into her hands.

For some reason, Jack's heart broke. He found himself wanting to reach out to her, to show her that she wasn't alone. So he knocked gently on the window to get her attention and offered her a friendly smile.

She did not see his smile. What she saw were his handprints, forming in the frost from apparently nowhere, pressed against her window glass as though trying to reach her. She screamed.

Jack fled. As he burst into the streets, he heard the child screeching and yelling about a ghost, a horrible ghost come to make her pay. Was he ghost? He didn't want anyone to pay. He didn't want anything. He just wanted – _needed_ – to know what was going on.

He only stopped running once he'd reached the safe shadows of the woods. Not one person in the village took note of his flight. Huddled against a tree, he watched several of them hurry towards the home of the screaming girl. No one so much as glanced his way.

A hand settled onto his shoulder. Jack looked up and found himself face-to-face with the dark figure he'd met on the lake. His mouth went dry. "Am I dead?" he croaked, barely able to voice the words.

The man in black slowly shook his head. "No boy. Not dead. Just…special."

_Special_. That sounded…good.

"Special how?" Jack asked, standing a bit more straight.

The man in black smiles his razor smile, keeping his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Very special, Jack. More than you could ever imagine. Would you like to see?"

Jack's hand closed over the spindly one on his shoulder. The only hand he could touch, attached to the only man who knew he was alive.

"Yes," he said, with only a bit of hesitation.

And so the Lord of Nightmares opened a portal in the night and took Jack Frost under his wing.


	2. New Moon

Sorry if it seems like this chapter took a while but, well…I had two term papers due this week. So I'm just a leeetle dead. Also, I've got this story plotted out for some long-ish chapters, so it might be several days between each update. So please be patient with me…I really do appreciate all of your support and I'll work hard to live up to your expectations.

Like I said in the last chapter, this one picks up in around the same era as the movie, i.e. 300 years after the prologue, but I've bumped it back from early spring to late autumn for plot and character reasons. We good with that? Okay, awesome. Let's go.

**Chapter 1: New Moon**

It may have been mid-autumn for the outside world, but at the North Pole, it was crunch time. Yetis hurried from workstation to workstation, bearing great heavy loads of unwrapped toys, boxes, wrapping paper, and massive velvet sacks. Elves scurried underfoot, bearing platters of cookies and eggnog, tripping their co-workers, arguing over dropped crumbs and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Chaos reigned supreme, turning the whole of Santoff Claussen into a bustling storm of wonder, waiting sweep over the world.

And in the center of it all was the boss, round-bellied and broad-shoulder, striding through the organized chaos of his shop with the confidence of a general surveying his army. The children of the world knew him by many names – Santa Claus, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Ded Moroz – but to his friends, his family, and his fellow Guardians he had but one name: Nicholas St. North.

"Pick up the pace!" he boomed, clapping his broad hands. Without any effort, his rich voice carried to every corner of the massive room. "We are on deadline, yetis, deadline! Only two months now until Christmas, so chop chop!"

The yetis yelled back in their guttural language, the few grumblers drowned out by those who were already caught up in the brightness of the holiday season. North laughed, clapped his foreman on the shoulder, and stepped into his private workshop. The room glistened with ice, the final templates for all his favorite toy inventions interspersed with half-finished prototypes for next year's line. North smiled to himself and strode to his desk, picking up a snow globe on his way.

He sat down in big leather chair, ready to dig in to his daily load of children's letters, but paused a moment before he began to shake up the globe and hold it to the fading light of sunset. The tiny fragments of white danced inside their crystal home, surrounding the delicate model of a miniature castle that lived inside. North turned the globe over in his hand, admiring the way the light refracted through the ice and contemplating which material would best capture that iridescence.

Then, out of nowhere, a shadow appeared in the snow.

North stopped dead, his hand perfectly steady so there could be no mistake. The shadow was real. It lurked where there should have been nothing but white, its full form hidden in the snow. When he squinted at it, North thought that he could make out a humanoid figure – thin, long-limbed, and carrying a twisted staff.

Then the snow settled and the shadow vanished as quickly as it came.

North rolled the globe over his palm and glanced to the darkening sky. There would be no advice from those heavens tonight, not with the new moon. He tried to tell himself that the advice was not needed. That it was probably nothing, just a trick of the light and his own imagination. But his belly told him that was not true.

Something was coming. Perhaps not tonight, but soon. What, he wondered, could it be? Or better yet…who?

* * *

Jack Frost perched in the highest window he could reach, braced against the stone sill with only his back and his feet. His hands, currently, were occupied with sliding his staff through the minimal opening at the top of the glass, its curved shepherd's hook aimed directly at the clouds.

With all his might, he concentrated, willing the winds to rise and the clouds to gather ever thicker, ever darker, sending the world above into an early twilight. He'd been cultivating this cover all week and it was about to pay off. All he needed was to keep it together for a few more minutes.

Slowly, painfully, the light from the world above began to die, not through any effort of his own, but because the sun, hidden though it was, was creeping towards its rest. Jack strained his ears, catching the ring of a clock tower's bell. He counted the chimes. Five o'clock. A half-hour until sunset. There was no way that the clouds would clear before evening.

Jack whooped and leapt from the window, a stream of cold air carrying him halfway across the massive, tower-shaped chamber. With practiced ease, he bounced from support beam to support beam, dropping stories with every jump until he reached one that had fallen years ago, coating the surface with ice that carried him to the floor.

The massive bird cages, which had been gradually filling their home since Easter for reasons Pitch only knew, rattled in his wake like iron chimes. The stone floor was delightfully cool and moist beneath his bare feet. Others might have called it clammy, but to Jack it was home. As he leapt from the fallen beam, he froze himself a path to kick up extra speed and glided the rest of the way into his private quarters, throwing the door open as wide as it would go.

The moment his feet left the ice, he bounded for the little chest at the foot of his snow-covered bed, digging in it until he'd uncovered a tattered old courier's bag. Bouncing with so much excitement that he couldn't keep his heels on the ground, he quickly stuffed the thing with what meager few possessions he might need for a long night out.

He was so absorbed in his task that he didn't notice the dark figure that appeared without warning in his bedroom door. Then again, it would take a sharper eye than even three hundred years of companionship could give for anyone to catch Pitch Black in his own realm when he didn't want to be seen.

The Lord of Nightmares watched his centuries-young charge for a silent moment before he finally deigned to speak. "You seem excited about something."

Jack squawked, dropped the bag, and shot straight up-right. The sudden motion knocked the staff from the crook of his arm and he scrambled to right it, giving his guardian a grin full of shattered nerves. "H-Hey, Pitch. I didn't, uh, see you. You startled me. Good one. Ha."

Pitch regarded the boy carefully, golden eyes sliding from the staff in his hand to the bag at the floor. He clicked his nails along the doorframe. "Jack. What are you up to this time?"

"Oh," said Jack, trying and failing to sound like his hopes weren't raised like ship riggings in a storm. "Nothing. I was just…" He shrugged. "Getting ready."

"Getting ready." Pitch echoed, with a deliberate pause between the words that made Jack cringe. "For what, exactly?"

Jack gripped his staff with both hands, willing down the nerves that flared whenever that hint of disappointment crept into Pitch's tone. There was nothing to be nervous over. He hadn't done anything wrong.

"Well, it _is_ a new moon," he said brightly, sliding closer on the balls of his feet. "First one since the temperature dropped, I might add. And it's a nice, crisp thirty degrees up there – checked it myself. And, _and_, there's cloud cover. A thick one! It's all nice and dark, just the way you like it. So, I was hoping that I could…you know. Go out."

A low hum rumbled from Pitch's throat. He turned from the boy and stepped out of the room, his feature wreathed with a thoughtful frown. "I don't know Jack," he said quietly. "It's still a bit early for frost."

"Come on, Pitch!" Jack caught Pitch's arm with his staff. He knew that he was whining, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and Pitch was often easier to persuade when he perceived Jack as a child. "I've been stuck in here since thaw. That's six months! There're only so many times I can go icicle bowling and make the same sculptures. I'm going to go nuts in here. Please?"

Pitch laughed. Even Jack couldn't call it a pleasant sound, since it tended to play his nerves like a xylophone, but it did bring him hope. The Lord of Nightmares shook his head, the laughter dying to a low rumble of amusement and a resigned, but not unpleasant, sigh.

"All right," he said, carefully unhooking his arm from the boy's staff. "You may go."

"_Yes!_" Jack leapt for his bag, swinging it over his shoulders. He kicked up his staff and bounded for the exit of their realm, but before he could get too far Pitch caught his hood, reeling him back in.

"You may go," he repeated, holding the boy in place. "_Only_ if you remember the rules."

Jack suppressed a groan.

Three hundred years. Give or take a decade, that was how long he'd been living under Pitch's roof, with Pitch's rules. For the first thirty or so, Jack had been forbidden to leave the Realm at all. Then came over fifty years of trailing the Nightmare King on his yearly outings, flickering from darkness to darkness to observe how fear had changed. Finally, after their first century together, Jack had managed to negotiate time for himself, up to three or four times a season if he was lucky. But it was always limited by the rules.

"Jack." Pitch's left no room for argument. "The rules. Repeat them."

Jack sighed, but finally gave in. "Be home by morning," he began, repeating the terms drilled into him over two centuries before. "At the first sign of sunlight, leave. No questions."

"And?"

"Keep a low profile. Stick to the shadows." Pitch nodded, releasing the cloth he held so that Jack could mask his gleaming hair. The faded gray hoodie and tattered jeans covered him as ash covered snow, long enough even to hide his hands and feet. As Jack continued, Pitch began to pace the room with his arms folded into the small of his back, sliding silently around his charge with long, even strides.

"No big pranks, nothing that can't be explained by the weather. Stay away from the animals. Don't take anything that might be missed. Don't go too far south. Don't linger in cities too long, especially if there's dream-sand around. Don't try to talk to any humans, not even the kids."

"_And?_"

Another sigh. Jack stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hood, staring at the ground. "And don't let anyone see me."

The edge of pain in his tone betrayed his true feelings, despite attempts to bury the resentment. Pitch stopped his pacing, going so still you might have thought that time had stopped. "Is there a problem?"

"…No."

"Don't lie to me."

Jack shrugged, shifting in his bare feet and too-long jeans. "It's nothing, really. I just." He sighed, breath condensing into a puff of visible air. "I don't see how anybody's ever going to believe in me if even people who can see me don't know my name."

Pitch turned to him, his arms still folded and his expression carefully blank. "Jack," he said, sounding almost wounded. "Is my belief no longer enough for you?"

Jack choked on a forced laugh. "What? No! Of course not. I mean, of course it is. I mean…I didn't mean it like that." He squirmed, trying to put his thoughts in order. "I just thought that, maybe, it would go faster if...you know. It wouldn't have to be much or start with anyone big. And if people started believing in me, then maybe they'd start believing in you again, too."

"Oh, Jack." Pitch shook his head, sliding his arm around the teen's shoulders. The hint of disappointment crept back into his voice, this time tinged with a hint of sorrow that made Jack's

Pitch led his charge out into the main hall, where the orange light of distant street lamps served as their only guide. "My dear boy," he said softly. "I know that it's hard. But you have to understand: the rules are the way they are for a reason."

He gave Jack's shoulders a reassuring squeeze, turning his face up to catch the weak light. "It's a dangerous world out there. I have many enemies, creatures not unlike you and I for whom belief is no barrier. None of them would hesitate to use you against me, if they caught wind of your existence. That's why we have the rules: to protect you."

Jack frowned at the floor. "I don't need protecting," he muttered, frustrated by his own perceived weakness. "I thought that's what the self-defense lessons were for. The fighting, the magic…isn't that enough?"

"Those skills are to protect you in the case of an emergency. They are not free license to expose yourself to danger." Pitch narrowed his eyes. "If that's what you believe, then perhaps it's better that you remain here for the evening."

"No!" Jack's heart pounded in his chest. Another month trapped inside would be hell, and who knew if there'd even be moisture for a proper cloud cover on the next new moon. He gripped his staff and swallowed his pride. "I'll stick to the rules, I promise. No one will see me. Not the children, not the Guardians. No one."

Pitch smiled his familiar razor smile. He pulled Jack closer, wrapping around him like a shadow. Like safety. Like home. His lips brushed the top of Jack's head as he whispered, "That's my boy."

Jack closed his eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the contact. Hugs were not exactly common fare from the King of Nightmares, but they'd come often enough over the last three centuries that it felt familiar. Comforting, too. Even if the rest of the world ignored or overlooked him, Pitch would always be there.

The embrace lasted just the right amount of time before Pitch pulled away, his hands lingering on Jack's shoulders. "Someday," he promised, "children will believe in both of us. Then, I'll have the power to crush those fools where they stand and your name will be known in tandem with every blizzard, flurry, and ice sheet that comes to pass.

"And then…" Pitch gently slipped his fingered under the boy's chin, tilting his head up until golden eyes met icy blue. "Then, things will be better. I promise."

It was a promise he'd made a hundred times before. And, as he had a hundred times before, Jack believed him. He had to. Their mutual belief was all that kept them going, after all.

"Now then," Pitch continued, his hands moving from Jack's face down to his arms. "One last thing."

Jack knew what was coming. First one, then the other, Pitch took Jack's hands off his staff and rolled back the sleeve, revealing the thick black cuffs that circled each wrist. Thin fingers traced the familiar paths of the protection runes carved into the metal's surface, reinforcing the spells that would guard their wearer even in his teacher's absence.

It was the last of Pitch's rules: Jack was never, ever to remove these protective bonds, not even in the Realm. He'd obeyed this one for over a hundred and fifty years now, and it had never steered him wrong.

With his inspection complete, Pitch nodded his approval and waved Jack on his way. Jack made it barely three steps before his excitement returned like a firework. He burst into a run, leaving Pitch to his work and darting through the endless dark tunnels of their realm.

They carried him up and up and finally, _finally_ delivered him into the wide open air of a cold, crisp wintery night.


	3. Golden Dreams

So…this chapter was pretty hard. It's really tough to make extended scenes of introspection and internal monologue engaging in text, even if it's describing events that'll be important to the overall story. But I think finally got it, so…yeah.

Next chapter might finally come out faster, since I'm pretty much done with school for the semester, but don't hold me to that. I'll try, but no promises.

**Chapter Two: Golden Dreams**

The North wind greeted Jack as an old friend and, from that moment, the night became a blur of indulgence, exhilaration, and bliss. He whooped. He dove. He laughed and danced among the clouds, working them into flurries that scattered snow across four time zones. A sudden cold snap seized the continent, bringing with it mild storms and a bare inch of snow.

Jack wanted more. He wanted ponds made solid for skating, inch-thick drifts in every yard, ice sculptures and snowball fights, the welcoming creak of a frozen river. But he had to hold back. Those were the rules.

Still, he had his fun, swiping an abandoned sled and dusting the northern towns with frost. His hours of freedom flew by much too fast. Finally, he came down off the high of his own excitement and found himself back in Burgess.

Burgess meant something to Jack, though he wasn't entirely sure what. It wasn't home. He had a home. But, eventually, Burgess always drew him back. Maybe it was the lake, tucked away in its woods, the site of his earliest memory. Maybe it was the town, grown from the first village he'd ever seen and absolutely beautiful when covered with snow. Maybe it was the people, the generations of children he'd watched grow up time and time again. Jack didn't know. He doubted that he ever would.

By the time he arrived, it was dark and late and cold. His appearance made it colder, scattering the streets with frost and icing puddles in the gutters. A light snow started up soon after, adding a few more flakes to the meager layer that covered the quiet roofs.

Jack drifted through the town, listening to the silence of his falling snow and trying not to feel alone. Through the windows of the Realm – which tended to borrow their views at random from places outside – he'd often seen the streets busting with people at the height of the day, children running around with their friends while parents went to work and cars rumbled through the roads. But he'd never actually been there, in the crowd. Pitch would never allow it.

Instead, the only streets he knew were these empty ones, silenced by the snow, without a soul to be found. He let the wind fade a moment, listening to his own footsteps. His frost reflected the orange glow of the streetlamps, so the entire town seemed to shimmer in the night.

Jack shivered. Not from the cold. He was never cold. He called the wind again, scattering the newly-fallen snow in his flight to rooftops and windowsills, peering in to see how the city's children had changed in the months since his last visit. As always, they were all in bed and fast asleep, giving him time to examine each of their faces in detail, committing them to memory. He liked to think that they enjoyed his snow – he always found remnants of their games come nighttime, so it seemed a decent guess – and imagining them with their sleds and their snowball fights made the waiting easier.

His last stop on the usual circuit around town was the Bennett house. His favorite. It wasn't just that Sophie was adorable or that Jamie was a boundless believer in all things magic and wonderful. Jack knew this family. He'd watched their mom grow up here, winter to winter, and their grandfather as well. They'd been around as long as or longer than any family in town. With so much changing in the months or years between his visits, that consistency was like a lifeline, keeping him grounded in time.

Jack swung from windowsill to windowsill, peering into the Bennett children's rooms. Sophie brought a smile to his face – gosh, but she'd gotten so big – which only grew wider when he alighted on Jaime's sill and saw just how many new posters he'd managed to fill the room with since his last visit. He had aliens and yetis – not just "Big-Foot," but actual _yetis_, like the kind Santa kept around for all his grunt work! – and statues of fairies and dragons and superheroes and all sorts of wonderful things.

This was the other reason Jack loved the Bennett house best of all. During the dark months, when he could get out earlier and stay around later, he would come straight here just so he listen to the stories Jaime told his little sister before they went to bed. They didn't make as much sense as the ones mothers told their children, they tended to ramble on and include plot-points from nowhere, and Jack loved them. He loved the way Sophie's face lit up with each new twist; loved how excited Jaime got, bouncing on his bed; loved how sled-rides turned to flights of fancy and snowball fights into wars for survival.

He'd half-hoped that he might catch one of those stories tonight, but it was much too late. Jaime was already fast asleep. Jack sat in the window, his hand braced against the glass, painting frost on the window as an excuse to spend just a little more time watching over him. Perhaps, he lingered a little too long – the ice gave a tremendous crack under his hand, like a tree branch snapping, that startled Jaime awake.

Jack recoiled, cursing under his breath. But Jaime didn't look to the window, so the frost spirit breathed a sigh of relief. No running. He wouldn't be caught. He wouldn't be seen.

Jaime propped himself up on one elbow, fluffed his pillow, and plopped back down with his arms buried under his head. He muttered something unintelligible and was asleep again in seconds, never noticing the little speck of white that tumbled from under the cushion as he resettled.

The little white thing – a tooth – dropped unceremoniously off the bed and onto the hardwood floor, bouncing twice before coming to a rest on the rug. Jack stared at it, curiosity swelling in his chest. He'd never actually seen a child's tooth up close before, though he knew Pitch to be fascinated by them. If he turned his head, he thought he caught sight of something gold sparking deep within the enamel. What could it be?

Without thinking, Jack pushed open the (surprisingly unlocked) window and slipped silently into the room, crouching so he wouldn't cast a shadow over the sleeping boy. His fingers curled around the tooth, bringing it into his palms and into the light.

The glow he'd seen before was gone, leaving a tiny nub of enamel like a hailstone that would never melt. Jack turned it over in his hands, careful that it never left his palms, searching for the secret. Tooth Fairy treasured these little pieces, he knew that much. Pitch also thought them worth collecting; his Fearlings often gathered the ones that had been lost by careless children or thrown out by non-believers. Jack thought it had something to do with memories, but he'd never been entirely sure.

He wanted it, he wanted to know. He glanced between the nub in his hand and Jaime, whose breathing had returned to the soft sighs of deep sleep. Silent as a snowflake, Jack approached the bed, drawing a pair of ice-cold quarters from the pocket of his hood. He'd found them on the sidewalk two cities over, thought he might scrounge up enough for one of those sugary machine-drinks that made his toes tingle. This was a better trade. He clicked them together, tarnishing the metal with frost, and slipped them under Jaime's pillow. The tooth took their place with him.

At the window, dawned on him: he'd given Jaime a gift. Sure, it was just some coins for a tooth and sure, he'd attribute it to the Tooth Fairy before any connection got made to Jack. But still. _Still_. He'd given a present. Everything that present brought, the happiness, the joy – that came from him. From Jack Frost.

Jack hesitated on the sill, his staff braced against the floor. Guilt plucked at his heartstrings. Pitch always said that gifts spoiled children. He called it a form of lying, promising that the world would be grateful if only they were good when that couldn't be further from the truth. That was the Guardians' way.

But, Jack reasoned, if you thought about it, it wasn't really a gift. It was a trade, and a fair deal. A tooth for two coins, no different than if he'd used them in a machine. And besides, now he could give the tooth to Pitch, to add to his collection.

The rational banished Jack's guilt, allowing excitement to flood into its place. He leapt from the windowsill into the arms of the wind and rode it high into the air, until the entire precious city of Burgess unfolded beneath him. He summoned the clouds and stirred them up inside, changing the flurries to an all-out storm that blanketed the city and its forest in beautiful white.

When Jack floated down again, it was on the outskirts of a newly-covered winter wonderland. His head spun, giddy with exhaustion, the good kind that comes from a job well done. Perhaps it was still too early in the year. He'd used up a bit too much energy. He needed a rest.

He picked out a tree on the edge of town and settled into his branches, keeping an eye on the horizon and an ear on the clock tower in the city square. He had only a few hours until dawn and so much more he wanted to do, but he could take a moment, just to relax and enjoy his city of ice and snow. Just a few minutes, to catch his second wind. Then he would move on.

That's what he believed as he stretched out on the branch. But by the time the bell chimed the four o'clock hour, Jack Frost was asleep.

* * *

At a quarter to five, the Sandman arrived in Burgess.

The little town wasn't always the last on his list. He liked to rotate through the time zones, bringing different dreams to different children at different times each night, and he wasn't always on-site to administer them. But tonight, Burgess's turn was up for his last in-person stop in the region, and so he settled on his golden cloud and spread the dreams on the glistening streams.

He had not been expecting the snow. It was only mid-October, and already the town was covered in several inches of the stuff, reflecting the light of his dreams. Sandman had always liked snow, where it wasn't a danger. It kept the world so quiet. So he crafted dreams of ice-giants and snowball wars, of figure-skating competitions and dancing with snowflakes, and scattered them to the children to prepare for their surprise.

That's when he got his second surprise for the evening. Inexplicably, one of his streams arched towards the woods on the edge of town, beyond the houses where no child should have slept. Was there someone alone out there, cold and lost among the trees? The guardian in Sandman bristled with concern, and he floated off to investigate.

What he found was a teenage boy, lounging in a tree, fast asleep. At first, Sandman thought he might have been a runaway, what with his too-big clothes and bare feet, a gray hood masking him from view. He might have been lost to the darkness if it hadn't been for the sand. But then Sandman caught a glimpse of the boy's hair, far too white to belong to such a young man, and drew close enough that he could feel the aura of cold that radiated from the sleeping form. And then there was the odd staff he carried, the shepherd's crook caught in the crook of his right arm, its antique wood coated with the same frost that collected on his shoulders and sleeves.

The boy, Sandman realized, was like him: an immortal, a legend, a myth. A winter sprite, perhaps, though one with considerably more substance than the flickering beings he'd seen before. And Sandman was quite certain that he hadn't seen the boy before.

But he was here now, child-like enough to draw in the dreams, and clearly in need of a good one. Sandman, not know what the boy would favor, crafted a bit of sand into the raw potential of imagination and sent it merrily into the boy's mind, lingering nearby to see what it created.

The boy stirred only slightly as the dream took hold, shifting the staff closer to his body like a security blanket or teddy bear. Sandy leaned in eagerly to see what he created. Spirits' dreams were fascinating things and wonderful inspiration for those he sent to children. He watched the sand condense into a laughing figure flying on the wind, soon joined by another, and another. They were children, playing with the wind.

But the dream had barely taken form before it began to change. It started with the heart of the flying boy, black sand crawling from its chest like a living creature, consuming the golden dream-sand and swallowing the little dream-figure from the inside out.

Horrified, the Sandman tried to stop it, throwing in more sand, more imagination and dreams, but it too was only consumed. Soon the entire beautiful, oh-so-brief dream had been devoured, leaving nothing but a raging beast of black sand with eyes that blazed like flame.

Sandman recoiled, hands cupped over his mouth. He'd never seen his dreams change, not like this. This, this was twisted and evil, an infection that ate away at the core of goodness that powered his sand. The teen squirmed, clutching the staff as though it could protect him, biting his lip to muffle cries of fear. Still tethered to his mind, the dark creature snarled at Sandman, puffs of black sand bursting from his nose.

The Sandman lunged, ducked under the beast's hoof, and shook the sleeper with all his might. With a gasp, the boy-spirit woke, his hood falling back to reveal the full head of frost-white hair. The beast that preyed on him shrieked and, freed from its bonds, galloped off into the night. Sandman tried to give chase, but the monster was too fast, vanishing into the shadows.

Sandman huffed in frustration before turning back to the boy-spirit, his hands lingering on the frosted arm, assuring the other that he was not alone.

The teen clutched his staff up as though expecting a fight, his eyes darting wildly until they finally landed on the glowing golden hands. He followed the arms up to Sandman's face, yelped, yanked away, and fell out of his tree. He hooked the staff on a lower branch and flung himself away from the tree-trunk, his heels sliding into a pile of snow and fallen leaves. He held his staff at the ready, shoulders hunched, toes curled, back to the wall of trees like a cornered animal, as though he were Sandman's prey.

Baffled by this reaction, Sandman bobbed to the ground like a soap bubble, floating on a cloud of gold several feet from the startled teen. He waved to the boy, offering his friendliest smile. When the other spirit didn't immediately flee, Sandy held up a hand in an 'okay' sign and tilted his head, a question mark flickering in the air.

The boy narrowed his ice-blue eyes, brows furling in confusion. "I…what? You don't talk?"

Sandman shook his head, making note of how the boy's grip trembled on his staff. He made the signs again, his expression twisting in concern.

This time, the boy understood. "I, uh. Yeah," he said, lowering the staff ever so slightly. "I'm fine. I'm not…I'm fine."

He did not relax, but his arms went a bit slack, lowering the staff from its defensive bar. Sandman took that as permission to drift a few feet closer. He pointed to himself and smiled again, forming two images in rapid succession: first a pile of sand, then a humanoid form.

"I know who you are," said the boy, taking a slight step back. "You're the Sandman. Right?"

Sandman nodded. Then, he pointed to the boy and another question mark appeared over his head.

"You want my name?" The boy hesitated, tightening the grip on his staff. His eyes darted around them and, for a moment, Sandy was afraid he'd take off like a frightened rabbit. He didn't calm, exactly, but he did mutter, "It's um. It's Jack. Jack Frost."

Jack Frost. Sandman committed the name to memory, bobbing further into the air on the flush of excitement he always got when meeting new immortals. Their world was already so large and so empty that every new life that appeared brought ripples of excitement, whether they be good or bad.

He kept his distance so Jack would feel more comfortable and began asking questions, flashing through his symbols at a leisurely pace so the boy could keep up. Jack frowned, puzzling over the views of snowflakes, icicles, and the Burgess town hall.

"Did I do that?" he translated, correctly. When Sandman nodded, he sighed. "Yeah, I did. It's what I do. See?"

He let the end of his staff drop. It bounced off the hard ground and sprayed a nearby bush with frost. Sandy clapped his hands and rolled with silent laughter, kicking his feet in delight. A boy who made snow! The children would love that.

At first, Jack Frost seemed surprised by the attention his talent earned. When it registered that he wasn't being mocked, that he had earned genuine praise, his features softened and warmed. A brief smile, bright as dawn's light on fresh snow, crawled across his face.

An instantly later, it was gone. He bristled again, grasped his staff in both hands, and turned his back on Sandman quick as he could."Look," he said, "no offense, but I really shouldn't be here. I should have left hours ago and, and I need to…I need to go."

He kicked off the ground, riding a burst of wind into the air. Sandy, exclamation points dancing over his head, flew after him. He caught the frost-teen's arm before he could get too far, pulling him back down to the roof of a nearby shop.

Jack groaned, trying and failing to shake the hand off his arm. "What? What do you want?"

Sandy pulled him down for a better view and tried to explain what had happened. He showed the boy in his tree, his sleeping face, his dancing dreams. When they changed, he had to morph the monster into something even fiercer than before, to make up for his lack of black sand. He held the beast out to Jack, imploring him without words, before letting the monster dissolve through his hands as he waited for an answer.

Jack groaned, ruffling a hand through his white hair. "What, you tried to give me dreams, is that it? That's real nice of you, Mister Sandman, but it doesn't work for me. Okay? I don't dream."

Sandman gave a start, a cloud of sand flying off him in all directions. Didn't dream? _Didn't dream?_ He'd never heard of such a horrid thing. Without dreams, what was there to comfort the boy in long nights? Where were the flights of fancy, the long-awaited rests, the wonder?

The shock must have registered in his entire being, because Jack laughed, though his tone held little humor. "Relax, little man, it's not the big a deal. Lots of people don't dream. Right?" He didn't sound entirely certain about that. His eyes trailed again to the hand holding onto his sleeve and he seemed to hesitate a moment before shaking it off. "Are we done here?"

Sandman shook his head, tugging at the boy's sleeve. He flashed more symbols – a house, a guiding star, a question mark, the moon – but it seemed that Jack Frost had lost interest in what the stranger had to say. He pulled his arm roughly out of Sandman's grasp and broke away, yanking the hood back over his hair.

"We're done. No more. I have to go. Just forget you ever saw me."

Sandman waved his arms in protest, grasping again for the boy's arm. Jack whirled around, his staff flying. The high curve of its crook stopped a hair's breadth from Sandy's throat, bringing the golden man up short.

"I'm warning you," he said. "Don't follow me. If you do, it…it won't be good. So just don't, okay?"

Sandy raised his hands in surrender and nodded his understanding. Jack retreated a few steps without turning around, then spun on his heel and leapt off the rooftop. Sandy raced to the edge, only to watch as the boy caught the wind and flew off into the night, vanishing like a silver star.

The Sandman stood alone, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. Such a strange boy, this Jack Frost, but what truly worried him was the thing born from his dream. Where had it come from? What was its purpose? Where had it gone?

There was no time to wonder now. There was a schedule to keep, time zones to visit, children to gift with dreams. There was work to be done and no time to worry over oddities now. So Sandy filed the memory away for another time and took to his route, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that told him something had begun this night. Something he would come to regret.


	4. Nightmares

**Chapter Three: Nightmares**

Why had he stayed?

The question haunted Jack as he flew through the night, clinging to the North Wind and its guiding hand. Why, why had lingered so long? He should've left the moment he saw the Sandman, should've leapt right out of the tree onto the wind's back and been gone before the little golden man knew what to expect. Instead, he'd stayed behind, actually spoken with him, and now the Sandman, a Guardian, knew Jack's face. Worse, he knew Jack's name.

It was the touch, the warm hands on his arm. That was the reason. No one ever touched Jack Frost. No one could. No one wanted to. No one, except for Pitch. So when he woke to that unfamiliar warmth, it stopped him in his tracks. And then Sandman just kept doing it, grabbing his arm and catching his sleeve and trying to rein him in. If it hadn't been for the sunrise, peaking over the distant horizon to remind Jack of the rules, he might have...he might have stayed even longer.

Jack's stomach turned, rolling against the high-speed curves he normally found so exhilarating. Jack cursed himself under his breath and urged the wind faster, faster, losing his frustrations in the rush and the speed.

The Realm - which was the only name Jack knew for the place where he lived - didn't technically exist anywhere or anywhen. It was the place where nightmares lived, fear given solid form only when summoned. Tonight, it appeared high in the Appalachian mountains, perched at the top of a high cliff where only those willing to risk their lives in pursuit of fear would find it.

Bidding the Wind goodbye for now, Jack dropped through the hole beneath a broken bed-frame, anxiety clawing at his gut. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter. Sandman had no reason to remember him. He traveled the entire world and covered every continent every night. Surely he'd met hundreds of spirits in his day. He'd probably forgotten Jack the moment they left, so there was nothing to fear.

Jack couldn't fear. If he feared, Pitch would know.

With deep breaths and long strides, he entered the heart of the Realm and slipped off towards his chambers. Maybe he could get to bed before Pitch saw him and pretend he'd been there all morning. Maybe he could stay hidden long enough that Pitch forgot he'd gone out at all. Maybe he could...

"Jack."

Jack froze. Ice spread from his bare feet, cracking in the dead silence of the Realm. Pitch stepped from the shadows and peered at him down the long plane of his nose.

"You're late," he said. His expression betrayed nothing.

Jack cringed, turning to face his mentor. The blank mask Pitch wore was worse than any expression of anger; it made it impossible to tell what the man was thinking. Jack lowered his staff and ducked his head, trying to hide in his hood.. "I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I just…"

"Lost track of time?"

The pit dropped out of Jack's stomach. Pitch practically sang the words, knowing exactly where and how the excuse would fall. Could it be that he already knew about the Sandman, too?

"I can taste your fear, Jack. You know you've done wrong. You can't hide it."

Of course he couldn't. He couldn't hide anything from Pitch. Jack tried to respond, to apologize again or speak up in his own defense, but his mouth felt frozen solid, his tongue lodged against the back of his teeth.

Pitch drifted closer, with rustling cloth as his only sound. His long fingers traced the seam of Jack's hoodie, sliding up one shoulder, around the back of his neck, and down the opposite side.

"What am I going to do with you, boy? You know the rules, you know why we have them, you know I only want to keep you safe, yet you persist in doing exactly what you know to be wrong. It's so childish, so immature. You know better."

His hand, reaching the end of its trace, rested briefly on his shoulder before sliding back the other way. Jack braced himself for his impending sentence as the hand moved up the side of his neck and came to rest on the crown of his skull.

"But…" Pitch hummed to himself thoughtfully. After a moment of pause, he patted Jack's head. "I suppose it has been a rather long time since your last outing. A _minor_lapse in judgment is, perhaps, understandable."

Hope fluttered in Jack's stomach like a bird trying to escape a cage. He peeked out from under the hood to catch a glimpse of the Nightmare King's face. Pitch smiled, more amused than angry. He was in a good mood.

"...Really? You mean it?"

"Of course." Pitch's smile widened to the razor edges of his mouth. He ruffled Jack's hair through his hood, letting the cloth fall away so the boy could no longer hide. "There's no harm done, _this_time. I trust that you'll know to watch yourself better in the future."

Relief rushed through Jack, sapping the tension from his muscles. The last words were a warning, tinged with sharp edges: he would never get a second chance. But today, today Pitch was in a good mood, the best he'd ever seen. Even better, he knew nothing of the Sandman.

Jack shoved all thoughts of the golden man out of his head. If he lingered on them, the dread would return, and then Pitch would know. He might be willing to forgive a "minor lapse of judgment" like skipping curfew, but he'd never overlook Jack allowing himself to be seen.

Luckily, before the thought could invade his mind again, a shrieking sound drew both Jack's and Pitch's attention away. The cry, which seemed more delighted than hurt, burst from the thin hallway from which Pitch had appeared and echoed around their sunken tower. Jack craned his head for a better look, but saw only shadow.

"What's going on in there?" he asked.

Pitch giggled, which sounded like nails on a chalk board. He wrapped his arm around Jack's shoulders. "Oh, such wonderful things. Come, see for yourself."

He steered the boy into the hall, a familiar multi-leveled mess of sharp angles and sudden turns. With his former fears expelled, Jack's curiosity rose to prominence, tinged with relief and the lingering high of his night out. After the first turn he broke away from Pitch, darting up the jagged slopes that lined the walls and swinging ahead on the décor, but always keeping close enough that he knew where Pitch intended to go. Like its outside, the inside of the Realm tended to change from day to day and while Jack knew the place well enough to find his own quarters and favorite perches, he wasn't always certain where the winding halls would take them.

But as the angles became sharper and they spiraled further down, angling deep below the main hall, he began to realize where they were headed. It was a region he'd visited only a few times in the last three centuries, mostly because he had no inclination to venture there alone.

Sure enough, the hallway opened onto a round room of gray stone, its walls and floor unmarked and unremarkable. If you weren't paying attention – and at least once, in his youth, Jack hadn't been – the angle of the entrance and the dim light of its candles made it easy to miss the bottomless pit that dominated the floor. There were no walls or parapets to keep visitors from the edge. There was only a ring of plain floor, ten feet wide at its thickest, and then a sudden drop that would never end.

Over the pit, suspended in darkness, hung a glass basin the size of a swimming pool and filled to the brim with the writhing black sand of nightmares. They moved as both a single entity and as individuals, as did the ocean and its waves, horse heads rearing from the black mass only to dive under again and be lost in the mass of black.

Jack was used to nightmares, but he'd never seen so many at once. He swung down out of the hallway and stayed close to the wall, while Pitch strode straight to the edge of the pit, his toes hanging over the edge. He brought two fingers to his lips and whistled three long notes.

With a joyous shriek, half-a-dozen nightmares rose from their sea and galloped to meet them in a wide arch. Their hooves sparked against the air and, when they breathed, the snorted hot air and black sand.

They swarmed the two immortals, most clinging to Pitch for his affections and commands, though two went straight for Jack. The frost spirit found himself pinned in front and back, twin nightmares circling insistently, their bodies pressed against his. They sniffed at his wrists each time they passed, ceaselessly inspecting the bonds that promised, _Yes, he is ours. He is not to be harmed_.

Nightmares did not have names, but Jack recognized these two. They were colder than most of their kind, almost as cold as him, their black sand tinged with frost and their eyes shining silver rather than gold. This breed always seemed to like him.

"Notice anything different, Jack?" Pitch asked, coaxing his own herd of black sand into line.

Jack pursed his lips, contemplating the question. He ran his hand along a cold mare's neck and wondered if the Sandman's golden dreams were quite so rough.

"There's a lot more than there used to be," he said finally. He hadn't visited the nightmares' chamber in thirty-odd years, but he was certain that their numbers had at least doubled in that time.

Pitch clicked his tongue, beaming like a proud father. "All too true, my boy, but it's much more than that. Here, look a bit closer."

He swept his hands under the nightmare at his side, sending it up and arching through the air. It came down on Jack, scattered the pair that had clung to him, and pressed him back against the wall. Its breath was hot on his face, almost uncomfortably so. It loomed over him and snorted, daring the boy to move.

Jack's eyes darted over the creature's frame, taking in any detail that seemed out of place. There was something very un-horse-like about its hooves; they were cloven. A tuft of sand hung under its chin like a beard. And there – yes, at the top, over its fiery eyes – a jagged, broken horn.

"It's a unicorn," Jack said, leaning away from the too-warm breath.

"That's right. And not _just_ a unicorn, either." Pitch whistled through his teeth, calling the nightmare back, though it seemed reluctant to abandon a target that wasn't yet screaming in terror. "Just look at them all!"

Jack looked. Now that he knew what to look for, he understood. The Nightmares that surrounded Pitch had changed, they were no longer identical. One had gill and flippers, another flaming hair. They were still nightmares certainly, still part of the collective will, but they were stronger. More individual than ever before.

Pitch hooked his hand around the unicorn's neck and nuzzled its nose, sighing with undisguised delight. "Aren't they just lovely?"

"Yeah," said Jack, swallowing hard. "They're...they're awesome."

And they were, in the old sense, inspiring awe and terror in the same breath. One of the cold mares returned to his side, nuzzling up under the arm that didn't hold his staff. He patted it absently, his mind still whirring as he tried to understand.

"But…why are they so different? What's changed?"

Pitch laughed his rumbling deep laugh, disengaging from his herd to reach into his robes. The nightmares held their distance but not their peace, growing more furious and excited, like they knew what was coming. Pitch's hand returned bearing a bag of black velvet, which he untied.

"Simple," he said, dumping a part of its contents into his palm. "It's all in the diet. Tell me, Jack, do you know what these are?"

He held out his hand. Four teeth, dull in the sickly candlelight, lay cupped in his palm.

Jack stilled, suddenly remembering the tooth he'd taken from Jaime's room, the one hidden in his pocket even now. He forced himself to speak, saying, "They're...They're baby teeth. From children."

"That's right," said Pitch, rolling the teeth in his palm. "And do you know what's inside these precious, pretty little baby teeth?"

Jack had known, once, but the answer wouldn't come to him. He shook his head.

"They hold memories." Pitch savored the word 'memories' as a chef would a fine wine, licking his lips as though he would be the one to devour the teeth, not his pets. "All the most wonderful memories of childhood, every hope, every dream, every wonderful thing held near and dear to child's heart. These are the moments turned to in the darkest hour. They define lives, preserve childhoods…and feed the greatest fears."

With a flick of his wrist, Pitch sent the teeth flying. The nightmares, even the cold ones, dove for the teeth, fighting each other hoof and nail. Four of the six managed to snag a single memory each, swallowing in a single gulp. In seconds, their sands shifted and changed, blazing red-hot as new powers coursed through their forms.

Pitch laughed in delight as the nightmares streamed back into their bowl, diving deep into the black sands and adding their newfound power to the whole. "They're finally ready!" he crowed, practically dancing along the edge of the pit. "It's taken centuries of breeding and preparation but they're finally ready, my nightmares. Stronger than ever and more born every night. They'll sweep the world right under the radar of that fool in the moon and the Guardians will never know what hit them!

"And then –" He stopped suddenly and whirled around, his long arm uncurling like a snake to present Jack with his hand. "Then, my boy, it will be our time. The entire world will know our names. They'll see the error of their ways, understand how much they need us, and they'll finally, _finally_ believe."

It had been so long since he'd seen Pitch so excited that Jack couldn't help but match his smile. He took the offered hand and was instantly swept off his feet. They spun through the room, dizzyingly close to the edge, a mere slip from falling forever. It was almost as much of a rush as riding the wind. Almost.

Eventually, Pitch calmed enough to declare that Jack was no doubt exhausted, shooing him from the nightmares' chambers and into his own bed. It was only after he'd been left alone in the frozen room that Jack realized he'd never given Pitch the tooth he'd taken.

Later, when he thought about it, he couldn't say what made him decide to keep the piece a secret; but keep it a secret he did. He ferretted the tooth away in the secret space behind a loose wall-stone, where he'd always kept the things he wanted only for himself. As the sun climbed ever further into the sky, Jack crawled into the safe darkness of his snow and thought of only of his coming belief until he finally fell asleep.


	5. Black Omens

Another (tiny) time-skip here: whereas Chapters 1-3 took place around October 15th, this one picks up a few weeks later on Halloween night. I think I've made it pretty obvious throughout the chapter, just wanted to make sure we avoid confusion as much as possible. And now, all of the Guardians have finally made it onto the page! Huzzah!

**Chapter Four: Black Omens**

Seasons come and seasons go, each in their moment and each in their turn.

As a patron of spring, hope, and rebirth, E. Aster Bunnymund knew the truth of that cycle better than most, but it didn't stop him from getting restless in the long months between the end of one season and the beginning of the next. It was autumn for most of his believers, soon to grow cold, and though his beloved Australia and its neighbors in the south now basked in the rising warmth of his preferred season, they wouldn't have much use for his colored eggs or chocolate prizes.

Had it been any other year, Bunnymund would have passed the time dabbling in his latest chocolate recipes, traveling the world in search of new shades, or helping the autumn sprites paint leaves with the color of flame. But this year was not like other years. Something had happened. Something…wrong.

All Hallow's Eve found Bunnymund standing on a smooth, circular path of wide stones that ringed the edge of a side-chamber in the heart of his Warren. Suspended in the center of the room was a globe of white marble, painted with the same dyes that colored his eggs. On every continent, thousands of bright lights glowed, counting the children who believed.

Bunnymund stared at the lights intently, hoping that he was wrong. His nose twitched, scenting his own anxiety in the eternal spring breeze. Several of his legged eggs scurried from one carved landmass to the next, chittering in their shell as they tallied and counted.

Finally, one of the eggs – a wind-up thing made of bronze that had been taking the full account – slide down the side of the globe and leapt into Bunnymund's waiting paw. Its screen flashed numbers in rapid succession, red warning and yellow caution without a hint of green. Bunnymund scrunched up his face, not liking what he saw. He batted the reset button on the egg's rounded point and tossed back onto the globe.

"Count 'em again, googies. One more time."

A few squealed in protest, but went to their task at lightning speed. When the results came again exactly as they'd been before, Bunnymund's ears pressed back against his head. He'd been right. He hated being right.

The lights were going out.

Losing a few believers here and there was neither alarming nor new. It happened. Children grew up, they stopped believing, they blossomed from the seeds that the Guardians had tended and bloomed into people able to stand on their own, passing hope and dreams and wonder onto their baby siblings and, someday, to children of their own. It was natural, the way of the world.

This…this was anything but natural. If childhood was a garden, this wave was the equivalent of a herbicide or a drought, cutting huge swaths through the brush and leaving not a seed behind. Oh, it didn't happen all at once. It had been a gradual thing, barely noticeable at first, isolated to a few tiny towns. Now, it had spread like a disease. Almost a thousand children had lost their faith in the last twenty-four hours alone, and more were fading every day.

Bunnymund thumped the ground, turning the information over in his head and the egg over in his hand. He had to tell someone, check in with the other Guardians, get it confirmed. But where to first? Sure, he was on off-season, but North had less than two months to get his act together now; while Toothiana and Sandman never got time off. He was the only one free to keep an eye on the lights for now, but if something was up – especially something this dangerous – they had to be told.

North it was, then. Still six weeks to Christmas. He could deal with the interruption.

Dropping to all fours, he darted through the tunnels, whistling through his teeth to alert the golem sentries that he'd be gone. He ran north to the highest point on the world, telling himself that, perhaps, he was missing some little thing that would prove he'd made the whole scare up in his head. But that was a hope that even the Guardian of such things couldn't hold onto for long.

* * *

Strewth, but the North Pole was a cold bit of hell. And dark! With the moon bright overhead at midday! How in the name of nelly did North stand it?

Bunnymund cursed in time with his own interior monologue as he darted across ice, not daring to slow down lest his pads stick to the frozen ground. There were hundred perfectly good reasons why his tunnels opened where they did, everything from the structural analysis of a mountaintop hold to the magical barriers erected to keep out the old bandit's many enemies, but none of that stopped him from wishing he could just open a tunnel in the heart of Nicholas St. North's compound and be done with it all in one fell swoop.

He arrived at the wide double front doors just in time to leap over a yeti on his way out with a pile of wrapped gifts. The yeti shouted after him in gutter-speak, which Bunny didn't stop to return, not that he understood it anyway. His claws skittered and scraped along the mixed hardwood and metal of North's floor as he dodged both yetis and elves, with only his quick reflexes keeping him from disrupting the carefully-wound system of chaos that facilitated the Christmas prep period.

The shouts of angry yetis chased him all the way to the command center, right below North's own globe of glittering techno-whatsits, just in time to meet the burly Russian as he burst from his private workshop sword in hand. Bunny ducked under the first instinctive attempt to slash him and made a bee-line for the fire place, bouncing up-right and thrusting his front paws over the merry flame.

"G'day, mate. Bloody awful weather you got going up here."

Nicholas St. North deflated like a punctured tire, heaving a sigh and tossing the sword he carried back into its designated rack. "Bunny!" he said, trying to sound jolly and not quite getting there. "What on _earth_ would bring you all the way to the Pole? And so close to Christmas, too."

Bunnymund snorted, rubbing his front paws together to get the feeling back into the pads. 'So close to Christmas' his fluffy frost-bitten tail. "It's Halloween North. Still six weeks to go. Figured you be done be now, seein' as you've got all year to prepare."

"All year, pah. I will be keeping that in mind next time you get fur into twist over eggs."

"Whoa mate, I don't see you working with perishables. Totally different situations, you and me." Bunnymund hopped back on his left hind leg, raising the other to the fire and making sure he shook all the snow and ice out from between the pads. Given half a chance, he and ol' jelly-belly could banter like this for hours, Christmas or no, but now was not the time. "Anyway, I didn't come all the way 'ere to blather on."

"Ah, then you've come to help with Christmas preparations?"

"Not hardly." Satisfied now that his toes would not freeze off, Bunnymund returned both his wide feet to the ground and straightened to his full seven-foot (with ears included) height. "When was the last time you checked the globe?"

A shadow flickered over North's face, wiping it clean of smugness and frustration to be replaced with troubled concern. His wide eyes trailed to the flickering mechanical globe far above, one hand trailing towards his beard.

"What about the globe?" he asked, weariness replacing his previous confrontation.

Bunnymund hopped closer to the edge, not familiar enough with the flickering fairy-lights to tell at a glance how much or little he's been hit. "My lights are going out. Not all of 'em, and not all at once, but enough to show. It's way more than the usual season's drop." When your time to visit comes around only once a year, it's not uncommon for there to be a whole generation or more of stragglers, kids who've heard but aren't sure enough to believe before their first googie or gift. Even that can't answer for the numbers he's found.

"It's getting faster, to boot. I'm losing more every night. Seen anything like that on your end?"

"No," said North, stroking his beard and making his way to the nearest control panel. "But that does not mean it has not been happening. _Derzhisʹ tolʹko vtoroy._"

He started pounding away at a keyboard, pulling up the records and numbers that flicker across the screen. The whole blasted thing was one big computer, just the blend of magic and technology that always gave North his particular edge.

Bunnymund drifted closer, not understanding the numbers but knowing Nicholas St. North for long enough that he could read the man's every thought. It was in the crinkle between his eyes, the tense corners of his lips, the way his hands gripped every lever as though they concealed a blade.

"You've seen something," Bunnymund said, knowing it to be true without a flicker of doubt. "Something besides the lights. Another clue?"

North shook his head once, tight and controlled. "No clue. An omen." His eyes trailed across the screen briefly before he forced himself away, as though it physically hurt. He crossed to the hearth in two long strides, snatched something off the mantle, and lobbed it for Bunnymund to catch. "This."

'This' turned out to be a snow globe, not one of the magic balls North used to summon his portals but a normal decoration of silver and glass. Turning it over in his paws, Bunnymund found that the decoration inside was not crystal or glass, but carved from raw ice, a half-finished prototype like the dozens that filled North's workshop in the back.

"There were shadows there," said North, indicating the glittering interior of the globe. "Where no shadow should ever be, unlike anything I've ever created. And this, it came on a new moon. It is a bad sign, very bad sign."

Bunnymund nodded, more than inclined to agree. When one's patron wore the moon's smile, the night it hide brought bad tidings at even the best of times. "New moon…that'd be about two weeks ago now, yeah? Be about right. That's when I first noticed the drop."

"There's more." North swiped at a screen with his broad hands, shifting it from his tallied believers to a series of weather reports as seen from the sky. "In last century, yetis report strange weather patterns, which only appear at new moon. I do not believe this is coincidence."

Bunny huffed, returning the snow globe to its original place. "What sort've weather we talking about here?"

"Snow and ice where they should not be." North flickered through feeds, showing picture after pictures of weather patterns that must have made sense to the nutter who flew for a living, but meant little to Bunny, who traveled everywhere underground. "Temperatures plummet with no reason, blizzards appear from nothing, ice coats roads in the wake of tropic storms. But the next day – poof! – it is no more."

Bunnymund hummed, scratching behind his left ear. "And this only happens on the new moon, does it?"

"Yes, except when that new moon falls on Christmas or on its eve." North stroked his beard so furiously that Bunnymund thought he might pull out a clump of hair. "It plays a part in this, of that I am certain. I can feel it…in my _belly_."

He patted the rather impressive protuberance proudly. Bunnymund rolled his eyes. "Your belly. Right."

He bounded around to the other side of the console, drawing attention from the screens back to the globe. "Look, mate, not to rain on your parade, but I'll trust facts 'fore I trust your jelly-gut. We don't have any way to know what's tied in 'n what's not, so let's focus on the lights, okay? If they're really going out then we've got to figure– what the dickens is that?"

The globe rattled on its axis, its lights pulsing in and out. All around them, the yetis stopped their work, staring up at the machine. The elves froze on the spot for a split second, then scurried off to hide under tables and in cabinets. North straightened from the console, reaching again for his sword. Bunnymund grasped a boomerang, ears pressed back against his head.

A laugh, as dark and cold as a night alone, echoed through the Pole. Bunny stiffened, his instincts screaming to fight or run. North's eyes darted from one corner to the next, sharp as the blade in his hand. He whispered, "Can it be…?"

They knew that voice, though it'd been centuries since last it had been heard. It could only be the Boogeyman.

Pitch Black.

The globe, which continued to rattle and flicker as though it would shake apart, suddenly began to spew black sand. It streaked from either pole, swirling towards the equator like monstrous storms, swallowing up the tiny lights that tried in vain to struggle against it. Before either North or Bunnymund could move, the cloud of sand consumed the world and burst in all directions, creating a vacuum of cold wind that rattled toys on their shelves and presents in their piles.

Then the sand swept together, becoming a creature, a being, not human but close enough. It breezed around the massive room as though it could fly, flickering from shadow to shadow and laughing in its dark and wicked way.

Finally, just before it reached the Guardians, the sand dispersed in all directions. The creature it had created – their enemy, Pitch Black – was gone.

For the first time in three centuries, the North Pole stood utterly silent.

Bunnymund was the first to find his voice. "North," he said quietly. "Hit the Lights."

North nodded and reached for his console again, seizing a handle of copper and quartz. He twisted it, pulling the stone from its hole, and brought it back down with the hiss of valves. Green light flickered across every console and every screen. It radiated from the oceans of the globe, gathering strength for the briefest of seconds before bursting out through the skylight and spreading across the sky. From this place, it would reach every continent and flicker over every sky.

The children of the world needed their Guardians once more.

* * *

" – alright ladies, Paris total: thirty-three incisors, thirteen bicuspids, eight canines, two molars, all present and accounted for? Good, moving on: Cannes!"

Deep in the heart of Punjam Hy Loo, fifty thousand tiny wings pounded against the warm air as the Tooth Fairy armies darted in and out of their palace on their nightly rounds. At the center of it all was Toothiana, their leader, mother, and queen, her mind and her mouth running a mile a minute as she directed her children to every corner of the globe.

"There was a bit of a throw-down at that cup match in Toronto. That means a heavy load tonight – half of both teams lost at least one along the way," she said to deputy, darting about her flock of tiny mini-selves as they busied in and out with her orders. "Make sure you bring back-up and plenty of change. If you need reinforcements, we've still got a few out on the – what?"

One of her lieutenants buzzed into Tooth's hand, chattering a furious report about one of their fellows. The queen's feather drooped for a moment with a sound of concern. "What do you mean she's not back yet? She's still looking for Jaime Bennett's lost incisor? It's been two weeks now!"

Before the drama of the wayward charge could continue, three more buzzed up from the opposite side, squeaking in alarm. Tooth turned to where they were pointing and caught sight of the lights, spreading out over the distant mountains in waves of green.

North's magic. She was being summoned. No time to worry for a lost incisor now.

"Keep your heads up until I get back," she called to the flock, and took off for the Pole at top speed with her closest lieutenants at her side. She hated to leave in the middle of an operation, but Guardian duties took priority even over her precious teeth. With any luck, this wouldn't take too long to sort out, then she could get back to the task at hand.

* * *

On his ever-changing island in the vast blue sea, Sanderson Mansnoozie – better known as the Sandman – should have been asleep, but he wasn't. Instead, he hovered over a worktable in one of the twisting palace rooms, examining a nightmare caught in a glass.

Nightmares were wretched things. He'd seen more of them lately than he cared to count, coming from nothing but darkness to twist his good dreams into monsters of black sand. This one, the mermaids who lived off the coast of his island had managed to contain by dragging it underwater and trapping it in a jar. Now the creature swirled in its brine-soaked prison, tiny hooves clinking against the glass, searching for an opening that would not be given.

Sandy worked with the thing whenever he had the chance, trying to figure out what made it tick. These nightmares, they were different than those he'd seen before. They were more solid, more fearsome and strong. Worst still, they infected the minds of children like a plague – once one appeared, Sandman found that he could not coax another good dream into the child's mind without it being consumed in black sand. They did not spread quickly, but it was more than enough to worry him. Perhaps he should summon his fellow Guardians to alert them of the new threat…

A conch-shell horn called for his attention from the sea. Sandman floated to the window and spotted the green lights spreading over the dark sky, reflected in the darker sea. Such excellent timing! Nicholas St. North was truly a wonder.

With a single wave of his arm, Sandman swept his jarred nightmare into a pouch of golden sand and tied it to his waist. He summoned a cloud to carry him out the window, morphing it into something wondrous that would bear him to the Pole as fast as was able. A dragon, perhaps? No, a plane!

Sandman pulled the flight goggles over his eyes as the aeroplane took form, his mermaid friends singing farewells and good tidings as he darted off into the night. While he flew, he began to go through in his mind everything that he needed to tell his fellow Guardians, all about the black sand and the nightmares and the danger that was upon them.

There was quite a bit to tell. Perhaps, then, it would be best to start at the beginning…yes, that would go most smoothly. So, he would start with the first nightmare he'd encountered all those weeks before and the mysterious spirit boy from whence it came.

He would begin with Jack Frost.


	6. Visitors

Merry Christmas, dear readers. I'd hoped to have this up last night but family time comes first. Now that the presents are open and dinner is cooked, I've managed to pull it together. Hope you have a very happy holiday season.

**Chapter Five: Visitors**

_Kuh-reeeeek. Click-a click-a click-a click-a…_

The hidden mechanisms in the walls sounded like a monstrous metal spider come to life, iron scraping against iron as joints bent and gears groaned. Jack stood in the center of the barren hall, turning in a wide battle stance and counting his breaths in time with the machine. He strained his ears, holding his staff at the ready as he listened to the rapid clicking building inside the stone.

The clicking grew faster and faster as the machine picked up speed, blending together into one long string of rapid-fire ticks. Just when it seemed like something would break, it cut off, plunging the hall into a moment of utter silence.

A split second later, Jack moved.

_Bang!_ From the darkness, iron orbs the size of softballs shot, whistling through the air at high speed. The first missed him by inches only because of his quick dodge. Jack twisted in mid-lunge, freezing the orb so solidly that when it crashed into the opposite wall it exploded in a cloud of ice.

_Bang!_ The second came before the fragments of the first had settled, rocketing at him fast enough to shatter bones if it made contact. _Bang!_ Came a third, a fourth, and a fifth, following Jack as he flipped and weaved all along the hallway. They kept coming, faster and faster, until the air was thick with the whistles of flying iron and the crack of shattering ice.

After fifteen solid minutes, the mechanism in the walls ground to a stop. A final cannonball rolled pathetically from its hole, hit a trail of ice, and slid into the center of the hall, where Jack stopped it with his bare foot. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor were stained with ice, both in solid slicks and in fragmented piles. Icicles ringed the entryway, glistening in the pale light. Snow flakes, tiny and crystalline, drifted from the empty air.

Jack tapped the last cannonball with his staff, frosting it over before making his way around the corridor. He counted the frozen remains of fifty cannonballs scattered around him. Fifty out of fifty. A perfect score.

Again.

Jack sighed, leaving his combat practice to clean itself up. Like its outside, the inside of the Realm was mutable and resisted any change that it hadn't initiated. Already his ice melted without heat, carrying the iron fragments into the dark. In an hour, it would be as though he'd never set foot there.

Pitch had been gone for thirty-two of the last forty-eight hours, taking the Nightmares with him to put this or that plan into motion. Left alone in the Realm, Jack was bored. Even training wasn't any fun anymore. Eighty years ago he could have spent hours in that corridor trying to beat his high score before collapsing, battered and bruised, to sleep off the adrenaline-fueled exhaustion. Now, he'd cleared it three times without so much as breaking a sweat, and all it left him was the tingling sort of tired that made his joints feel stiff and his fingers go numb.

With nothing else to occupy his time, Jack wandered the halls, dragging his staff lazily behind him to leave a trail of frost and ice. Eventually, he found himself back in his room, where a number of half-finished ice sculptures – this morning's attempt to stave off the dreaded boredom – waited patiently for completion on the frosted floor.

Jack ignored them. He wouldn't have the focus to finish them anytime soon and he didn't think he'd have the energy now even if he'd wanted to. Instead, he found himself drawn to the nook in the wall, the one hidden by the loose brick where he kept his private things. There was a rubber ball and a bag of marbles, a paintbrush and a hand-carved wood star, all things quietly pilfered over the centuries from children who neither wanted nor needed them anymore. But today, his hand skittered past them all to the tiny fragment of white that was Jamie Bennett's stolen tooth.

Well, Jack supposed, the tooth wasn't Jamie's anymore. He'd traded for it fair and square, that made it Jack's now. But the memory inside it, now that belonged to Jamie, a single fragment of childhood joy locked away for a rainy day.

That, Jack had decided after much thought and self-reflection, was the reason he'd kept the tooth from Pitch. He wanted the memory, wanted to see it and feel it and know what it was like to have a childhood, if only for a single moment. Jamie was the sort of child Jack thought he might have been, if he'd had the chance. This memory, this one moment wrapped in enamel and time, was the closest he would ever get to being a child.

If only he could reach it.

Lost in thought, Jack drifted through the hall until he arrived in the central hub of the Realm. As he walked, he passed the tooth from hand to hand, mulling over all the ways he might reach the precious memory inside. Bird cages creaked and rattled as he passed, turning on their iron chains. It was such a familiar sound now that he almost didn't notice it.

But even deep in thought, he didn't miss the resounding _clang_ of something small and quick nicking a passing bar.

Jack stiffened at the sound – which did not belong here, not in his home, not while he was alone – and turned sharply on the spot, his staff grasped tight in one hand with the tooth clutched firmly in the other. Despite his best efforts, the staff wavered in his grip. Jack cursed himself for wasting the energy on training. That he'd never expected an actual intruder was no excuse.

"Who's there?" he demanded of the shadows, forcing the nerves to stay out of his voice. There was no response. "There's no use hiding. I know you're there. Come out!"

Nothing. The only sounds echoing through the tower were those of the cages and their settling iron. Jack listened intently for a long while, his ears straining and his eyes darting from shadow to shadow. He went so long without finding anything that he almost convinced himself that he'd imagined it or kicked a stone without noticing. He lowered the staff ever so slightly and uncurled his fingers to check the tooth one last time before he tucked it away.

In that instant, a gleaming emerald bullet shot from the far corner, darted across his palm, and snatched the tooth before Jack could stop it.

"Hey!" Jack shouted, whirling around. "Give that back!"

He took to his heels. Now that he knew it, the little dot of color was easy to pick out in the grays and blacks of the realm, no matter how quick it darted this way and that trying to lose him. Jack closed the gap and finally got close enough to identify the thief as looking almost but not exactly like a humming bird, all emerald, gold, and sapphire feathers, just large enough that it could clutch the tooth in its tiny hands.

He was almost on it when it glanced over its shoulder, met his eye, and kicked into high-speed, shooting straight up through the tower. Horror shot through Jack's body as he realized what it was about to do.

"Wait!" He bounced from beam to beam as fast as he could, but the humming-thief was too quick. It buzzed up into the weak sunlight at the top of the tower on bee-line for the nearest window.

Jack didn't have time to think. He jabbed his staff at the curved wall, shooting out a beam of ice that shot straight up the stone, forming a solid barrier that covered the window from lintel to sill. The humming-thief couldn't stop fast enough. It shrieked in a female voice, slammed into the ice, and dropped like a stone.

Jack leapt, stretched out, and caught the thief before it – she – could collide with any of the support beams. He hooked his staff around a pipe, swung around it once before he got his footing, and dropped to a solid platform jutting out of the wall.

He sagged against the stone, resting his weight on his staff so he could catch his breath. The hummingbird-thing continued to shriek and squeal, stabbing his fingers with its beak-like nose while its wings beating furiously against his palm.

"Ow, that's just…Ow!" Jack hissed in pain and let his staff drop to free his hand. He caught the hummingbird's nose-beak between his fingers, lifting the creature so he could look it properly in the eye. "Cut that out!"

The hummingbird squeaked at him, furiously trying to pull its nose out of his grip. It glared at him with brilliant violet eyes that might have been cute if they hadn't burned with hatred. Though its body was hidden in his palm, he could feel its tiny hands clutching the tooth against its chest as though it was the most precious treasure in the world.

Jack frowned down at it, releasing its nose and turning his hand for a better look at it. "What _are_ you? The tooth fairy?" The thing squeaked at him and, though he obviously didn't understand it, Jack thought he got the gist. "_A_ tooth fairy, then? There's more than one of you?"

The fairy scowled at him, vowing with its eyes to never tell him anything even if she could. Jack's scowl deepened and he tightened his grip slightly, testing to see how much pressure he could put on the thing without hurting it.

"Fine, whatever. Look, little baby tooth…thing. I know teeth are kind of your job and all, but that is mine. I traded for it fair and square and I'm not about to let you have it."

The fairy made a disgusted noise and spat at him, the tiny drop freezing before it could hit his cheek. Jack shook it off and eased his grip enough that the fairy wouldn't be uncomfortable, reigning in his annoyance so his voice. "Calm down, would'ja? I'm not going to hurt you. Hell, I just saved your life."

The incredulous squeal she gave was so cute it almost made him laugh. "It's true, I did. Here, see for yourself."

He picked up his staff against and stretched to reach the window several feet to the side of their perch. As the aged wood brushed the glass it crackled with power, purple sparks flaring with the power of several thousand volts. The fairy shrieked and ducked deeper into Jack's hand on instinct, only peaking over his fingers when he'd drawn the staff back and the deadly magic faded away.

"You see?" he said, uncurling his hand slowly so the creature could sit in his palm. "Pitch turns the security up to the max whenever he leaves. Nothing can get in or out of here except him. Not even me."

The fairy cooed in distress, her body curling protectively around Jamie's tooth. She trembled in his palm with such vulnerability that what little annoyance Jack still felt dried up. He stroked her head with one finger, smoothing the golden feather against the curve of her tiny skull.

"Sorry," he said with a sigh. "I don't know how you got in here or how long you've been hanging around, but it looks like you're stuck here for now. Better get used to it. You're not going anywhere."

* * *

Toothian and Sanderson arrived at the Pole within moments of each other, Tooth darting through an open window with her fairies while the Sandman's plane became a hot-air balloon that drifted down through the skylight. The moment she landed, Tooth went straight back to multi-tasking, but Sandman went straight to North, his golden sand adding a newsboy's cap, delivery bag, and paper to his usual ensemble.

"What's that, Sandy?" North narrowed his eyes at the paper's headline. The gold-on-gold made it difficult to read, but he could just make out the big, bold letters spelling 'BAD NEWS' across the masthead. "Ah, you are also having something to report? I'm afraid we all have bad news, my old friend. So much that I am not certain where it should begin."

Tooth turned from shooing one of her fairies on its appointed rounds and buzzed to join them, flitting between North's shoulder and Bunny's ears with all the focus of a hummingbird in a flower garden. "Start with the beginning then," she offered. "That is, the reason why you called us here. You did have a reason, right?"

North and Bunnymund exchanged a concerned glance. The Easter Bunny bowed out, stepped back to lean against the fireplace and gesturing to North with his paw. "Your house, mate. You take the floor."

North nodded, running a thoughtful hand through his long white beard. He crossed from mantelpiece rug to the hardwood of the balcony, his steps solid and steady over the carved Guardians crest that decorated the floor. He glanced at the lights of his globe to reassure himself of their belief, heaved a heavy sigh, and turned to face his comrades in arms.

"My friends…the Boogeyman was _here._ At the Pole!"

Toothiana gasped, dropping several inches as her wings stilled for a split second of surprise. "Pitch Black?" she said, aghast. "Here? Are you sure?"

"Sure as sunshine, sheila," said Bunny, his ears at high alert, twitching in search of sound. "I was here. Saw with my own eyes."

Tooth cocked her head, briefly lowering her feet to the hardwood floor. "You were here, Bunny? Why?"

"Cross-checking my globe with North's." Bunnymund's eyes drifted to the globe that overlooked them all, his nails clicking nervously against the wood of a boomerang. "We think the lights may be going out, and I'd bet my whiskers that it's Pitch's doing."

This time the cluster of mini-fairies that surrounded Tooth joined in on her gasp, one of them letting out a keening shriek. "The lights are going out and you didn't tell us?" she demanded, aghast. "Bunny!"

"I had to be sure before I called you in," Bunny insisted, his shoulders bristling defensively. "You two are busy. I didn't want to interrupt yeh for a false alarm."

Tooth ruffled her feathers, but conceded the point, pulling her legs beneath her to sit on a cushion of air. North took the opportunity to reclaim the floor, his deep voice rumbling with the severity of his words. "It is as Bunny says; we are losing lights. But moreover, as we checked for that, _he_ came. There was black sand covering the globe –"

An exclamation point burst to life over Sandy's head, but silent as it was the others didn't notice. North's story built in ferocity, his arms making wide sweeping motions to encompass the whole room. "– and then, a shadow came, _his_ shadow. The Boogeyman. He was here. He's back."

"It just…It doesn't seem real." The crowning feathers on Tooth's head ruffled and fell, pressing back against her skull. A mini-fairy fluttered close to whisper something in her ear. Tooth listened intently, nodded, and fluttered up to match North's line of sight. "Go back a bit. When you said 'black sand,' what did you mean?"

Before North could respond, Sandman bounced between his fellow Guardians, waving his hands for their attention. The moment their eyes turned to him, he pulled a jar of black sand from the pouch at his waist. The sand swirled in its glass-and-saltwater prison, pressing furiously against the glass, a tiny horse's head with fiery golden eyes rearing from the blackness to glare out at them all.

Bunny hunched low for a good look at the thing without daring close enough to touch it. "Sav," he swore under his breath. "That's the stuff, I'm sure of it. Same as before."

North took the jar with the same care he used on his most delicate toys, holding it up to the light of a nearby lamp. He turned it slowly, examining it from every angle. The horse-creature twisted to meet him, its nostrils flaring with golden sand. "Sandy," he asked. "Where did you get this?"

With all eyes on him, Sandman flashed through a rapid-fire range of signals, shapes, and swirling sand. It was only because his fellow Guardians had so much experience talking with him that they were able to keep up at all. Even then, they missed the first half of the explanation altogether, latching instead to the latter half's dire news.

"Your dreams turned into that?" Bunny demanded, his whiskers twitching. "Good dreams into nightmares, how is that even possible?"

Sandman shrugged. If he'd known the answer to that question, he would've called the rest of them into deal with it days ago. Tooth rested an hand on his slumped shoulder and whispered "I'm so sorry, Sandy," with the understanding of one who knew what it was like to lose their hard work to an outside force.

"It must be Pitch," said North, restlessly pacing the floor as his elves scurried clear of his boots. "There can be no doubt, he is King of Nightmares. This can only be his doing."

"Obviously," Bunny said, rolling his eyes. "The question is, what's he up to and how do we stop it?"

Sandman huffed as the two started bickering again, slipping into their usual banter and wasting precious time. There was an obvious course of action in his mind: find the Frost boy. If they did that, they'd have at least some of the nightmares traced back to their source, which made him their best lead. Hadn't they been listening?

He tried again to get their attention, but before he could Tooth suddenly gasped, "Guys, look!" and pointed to the high window open over their heads.

Smiling down at them through the clear winter air was the Man in the Moon. The four Guardians turned their eyes up to meet him, the very presence of their patron silencing arguments and soothing frazzled nerves. Manny, MiM, their old friend, could not always give the answers they wished for, but when he spoke to his Guardians it was always with wise guidance to lead them on their way.

A broad smile split across North's face and he laughed, shouting up to the moon. "It has been too long, old friend, far too long. If only we could speak under better circumstances, but I fear that is not the case, is it now? The Guardians gather only for good reasons. Of which, I'm sure, you are aware?"

The Moon sparkled in silent affirmation, its light intensifying until it beamed like a spotlight upon the Crest of the Guardians that decorated the floor by their feet. A shadow spilled over its next beam, staining symbol of their unity with a long unseen but hauntingly familiar silhouette.

"That'd be right, then," Bunnymund muttered, glaring at the shadow as though it were their enemy himself. "It's definitely Pitch."

With their fears confirmed, the joviality leeched from North's body and tone, replaced with the severity of an old warrior called back into the fray. He turned his face to the moonlight and asked it, "Manny…what must we do?"

In answer, the moonlight narrowed, coming to a gleaming point right on the circular 'G' in the center of the crest. The circle split open, soon replaced by a foot of raw crystal that rose from the floor, turning slowly on its pedestal to catch the silvery light.

"Oh…Oh wow!" Tooth buzzed with excitement, hovering near enough to see but far enough not to block the light. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

It took a moment for North to recover from his surprise, but when he did that same excitement rumbled from his chest. "He's chosen a new Guardian!"

Bunnymund's lips formed a soundless 'No,' but he didn't give the protest voice, so the others didn't notice. They'd not seen this crystal for centuries, not since they themselves were named Guardians. Its appearance could mean anything from a new member to a new enemy; there was no way of knowing for sure, after all this time. But whatever Manny was about to show them, it must be important. Somehow, someway, it must be.

The moonlight refracted through the great prism, its beams weaving themselves together into a solider forms. An image took shape, hovering over the crystal without movement or sound. A figure appeared, not short but not exactly tall, his body concealed under clothes that hung a size or more too large. One hand carried a shepherd's crook, the other hid inside a pocket. He wore a hood, but it was pulled back just enough to reveal the face beneath, which was the last thing to form: that of a young boy, a teen, with a casual smirk and not entirely innocent eyes.

Bunnymund stared up at the image, his brows narrowing in confusion. "Who is he?"

"I…I do not know." North shrugged and stroked his beard, taking a few steps in either direction in the hopes that a different angle would jog his memory. It didn't. He frowned. "Tooth?"

"I've never seen him before." Toothiana flitted around the image several times before buzzing near for a better look. "He seems young. Not much older than a child, really, but…ooh, just look at that jawline! If he treats them right those teeth will be absolutely gorgeous!"

Bunny rolled his eyes, but before he could get out a sarcastic remark, Sandy leapt from the floor in a flurry of golden sand. The sand in his body buzzed with excitement, delighted that his struggle for understanding had not been in vain.

There was no mistaking it. Manny's new Guardian – if that's indeed who he was – was none other than his very own Jack Frost.


	7. Dreams of the Day

Ugh. This chapter tried really hard to kill me. Some parts grew out of control, then when I finally got to the ending and I hit a massive roadblock of indecision that took forever to unstick. I still feel like the timing's off somewhere and it's driving me nuts…but at least I got what needed to be said out of the way, so we can get to the stuff with better momentum.

**Chapter Six: Dreams of the Day**

For once, Sandy didn't have to fight for his companions' undivided attention. All eyes were on him as he drifted circles around the moon's picture of Jack Frost, with Tooth as the first to speak. "Oooh, you know him Sandy? That's wonderful! What's his name?"

Sandy, delighted that he would finally be free to unravel the mystery of his strange spirit-boy, beamed at his friends and pointed merrily to the space over his head. Golden sand swirled from his fingertips, forming a small sphere and a set of six-pointed knucklebones.

"Jacks?" North mused out-loud, only for the pieces to fall into place with a smile seconds later. "Ah, Jack!"

Sandy's grin widened while added a snowflake alongside the children's toy. This one proved harder to unravel, North's eyebrows knitting together in confusion. "Jack…Snow?"

Sandy shook his head, urging another try. Bunnymund, wearing an expression like he just swallowed something sour – he never did like winter much, the old grump – glared at the snowflake and muttered, "Jack Ice?"

With another shake of his golden head, Sandy drew sand from the snowflake's tips, spreading it into a delicate fern pattern trapped inside a pane of glass.

Tooth, no doubt drawing on her vast experience with windows, thumped a little fist into the palm of its opposite hand. "Jack Frost!"

Sandy raised his hands in a silent cheer. We have a winner!

Bunnymund wrinkled his nose. "Jack Frost?" he echoed, as though the name tasted bad. "Never heard of 'em. Where'd you even find him, Sandy?"

That, Sandy decided instantly, was a story his pictures alone couldn't tell. There was just too much to summarize, and so he beckoned his comrades closer, gathering golden sand between his palms. His fellow Guardians drew near until they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a half-circle. When they leaned closer for a better look, Sandman blew a hard puff of air through his cupped palms. His sand billowed into a golden cloud and plunged them all into the clearest daydream he could muster.

There was the town. There was night and there were dreams. There were the woods. There was the boy, Jack Frost, alone in the shadows, asleep on his branch.

The scene shifted and stirred, as dreams do. Now they were at Jack's side, seeing him in detail for the first time. His clothes may have been tattered and gray, but beneath them he glistened white and clean, like new-fallen snow. Gold curled around his head to offer dreams, giving rise to tendrils of black sand and a fearsome horse that galloped into the night.

The scene shuddered like the breaks on North's sleigh. Now Jack Frost was on the ground, staff ready to attack or defend. A bush glistened with frost at his whim. The boy smiled like dawn on new snow.

Then he was gone, scattering ice over the rooftops as he fled. The scene shifted to follow him, catching up in the middle of a one-sided argument. The nature of dreamtime makes his words hard to follow, but two things come through, clear as a mountain stream:

_"I don't dream."_

and

_"Don't follow me. If you do, it won't be good."_

The words chased them back into the workshop, echoing through their minds as the last remnants of dreamtime melted away. Sandman huffed and plopped onto the floor, motioning for an elf to bring him eggnog while his fellow Guardians blinked the dream-sand from their eyes.

By the time they'd fully settled back into themselves, the moon had moved on in its nightly patrol, taking the boy's image with it. The crystal lingered for a moment before singing back into the ground, the Guardian's crest sliding out to mask its hiding place. North stared at the engraving thoughtfully, stroking a few lingering sand grains out of his beard.

"So," he said, as much to himself as to the others. "This boy, Jack Frost…he is to be our new Guardian."

Bunnymund – who Sandman knew could be a terribly deep sleeper in the winter and, as such, had nearly succumbed to even his daydream's weak haze – sputtered to full consciousness, his shaking himself until fur stuck out in all directions. "Now see here, North!" he insisted, drumming one foot restlessly against the floor. "You're jumpin' to unfounded conclusions, you are. We've got no reason to think this...this _kid_is supposed to be a Guardian."

"We've also got no reason to think he's not," Tooth said, ever the voice of reason. Her fairies chimed in with nodded agreements.

"Oh yeah?" Bunny snorted. "When was the last time Manny appointed a new Guardian, huh? Naw, don't answer that, I already know: it was during the Dark Ages, when he brought us in. Since then it's not been word one, not a single hint of possibility. You're telling me that his first new recruit in centuries is gonna be some greenhorn gumby fresh off the boat?"

Toothiana hesitated, bobbing in the air. "Well…he might not be new..."

"Yeah? Then why haven't we seen him before?"

"We have."

Bunnymund's ears twitched to catch North's words. The rest of his body followed after a moment's pause, his nose twitching in both annoyance and confusion. North had already moved, crossing to the display consoles he'd shown the Pooka earlier and swiping his hand across a touchpad to bring them back to life.

"Did I not tell you so, Bunny? Strange weather. Ice and snow where they should not be. And _only_on new moons." North glanced to Sandman. "Was it so when you met this Jack Frost? A dark night with no moon?"

Sandman nodded, shaking off a nap that threatened to pull him under. He bobbed up for a closer look at the colored blobs on the screen. They didn't mean much of anything to him – the worst weather he had to worry over was strong winds – but Tooth seemed to comprehend, her fairies darting in for closer looks before returning to their Queen with soft, excited chattering.

"A century's worth of cold with no explanation and now, Manny brings us boy of snow and ice and frost! Who else could it be? A hundred years hardly makes him green."

"Yeah, well. Doesn't make him a Guardian either." Bunnymund huffed, but conceded the point. His foot continued to at, softer and more thoughtful than before. He scowled at a knot in the polished wood. "I don't like it. It's fishy. Spirits like that, they don't just fly under the radar without trying. Why's he been so quiet? Why only come 'round on the new moons, but never Christmas? It's like he's avoiding us, avoiding Manny. What's he trying to hide?"

To that, North shrugged. Of course, there was no way to know. "We will have to ask when he is found."

"Ifhe's found."

"Nyet, _when_. Man in Moon says we need Jack Frost, and so Jack Frost shall be found."

Bunny threw up a paw, but finally gave in. For now, it was their only lead. They would find Jack Frost, whether they wanted him or not.

* * *

The silver basin was a bit tarnished, but the water it held was perfectly clear. It caught a bit of the rising orange sunlight that flickered through the window, a few soft ripples disturbing the warm colors. Jack leaned over the table on which it sat, peering at the surface and holding his breath. He needed it as still as possible, flat and smooth and…yes, _there_…

He tapped the basin with his finger, sending ice crackling all along the silver sides and spreading thick across the water. Satisfied, he motioned for the little fairy, perched momentarily on the wall above his head. "All set. Come on down."

The fairy trilled and fluttered to join him, buzzing nervously around his head. She'd gotten better over course of the night, not exactly comfortable and never relaxed, but a little less angry than before. Jack wouldn't call them friends, but also he wouldn't deny that her little splash of color made a welcome change.

He cupped the creature in his hands and guided her to the ice, careful not to linger too long lest she get cold. Babytooth – Jack didn't know if that was actually her name, but she responded to it and he liked it, so it stuck – perched on the silvery edge of the basin, her mismatched eyes rendered lilac and periwinkle by her faint reflection. She looked from it to Jack, then back to the ice for a long moment, and finally settled on Jack again, crossing her little arms over her chest. A puff of fogged breath burst from her mouth, accompanied by a disbelieving squeak.

"Aw c'mon. How do you know you won't like it if you don't try?" Jack gently nudged her towards the surface, but she held tight to the bowl, bobbing only slightly on the tips of his fingers. "It's fun, I promise. See?"

He pushed off the table, sliding across the floor on a plane of ice that spread perfectly smooth in all directions. His own affinity with the ice made up for the lack of edge to his bare feet, letting him glide around the tower with practiced ease, first backward, then forward, then spinning once he was sure he had her attention. Babytooth watched him intently from the edge of her bowl, the little golden plume at the top of her head perking with her piqued interest.

Jack chuckled as he rounded the curve back to meet her, dropping the end of his staff to the ice. He spun around it three times, going faster and faster, before shooting towards the table and catching himself on its edge. "I told you – fun! And your feet are perfect for this. Give it a shot."

Babytooth cooed, still uncertain. Gingerly, she eased herself off the silver and onto the ice. Her wings started buzzing the moment both her feet hit cold, struggling to keep her upright, but Jack caught her before she could take off.

"No flying," he said, offering the tips of his fingers for her to hold onto instead. "Just slide forward with one foot...there you go, now the other..."

Gradually, Babytooth eased into the motions, gaining confidence and speed. Jack guided her on a first full lap around the basin's edge before pulling his hand away without warning. Babytooth shrieked at first, but managed to stay upright and moving without his help. After another lap the fear was gone, shrieking replaced by chirping laughter, her wings buzzing for extra speed as she looped around and around the ice. She got so caught up in it that on the eighth lap she lost control and shot straight off the edge of the basin, catching herself in mid-air and buzzing to Jack with excited calls.

Jack laughed right along with her, spinning twice on the spot to keep up with her as she orbited his head. "See? I knew you'd like it."

He cupped his hand loosely around her to return the excited nuzzle she gave his cheek. The way she touched him – the grasp of her tiny hands, the little nudges with her head, even her wings beating against his palm – was electrifying in its novelty, so different from Pitch's smooth fingers and long arms. When he held her up to eye-level she stood on his palm, her hands braced on the tip of his nose and her smile showing off perfect rows of tiny white teeth. It was adorable.

"You have to try it outside sometime," he said, returning her smile. "Up north, you know? Once the winter sets in and the lakes are frosted over, that's the perfect place for skating. Nowadays they've got these indoor rinks–" All of them stupid, too-hot hell holes with awful lights. "–but you just can't beat a good swimming hole after a night's snow, with shadows falling over the drifts and stars forever...it's the best."

Babytooth's smile dimmed, transforming into bewilderment tinged with concern. She hopped out of Jack's hand and fluttered to the basin again, lowering her beak to a clean patch of ice. There she scratched a picture in the frost – a circle, surrounded by a halo of flame. She pointed to it, then to the window again, where the orange of dawn had begun to bleed into the yellow and white of morning.

Jack's smile faltered. "Well…I guess you could do it during the day, too. That's when all the kids skate and they seem to have fun, so…"

Babytooth quirked her head to one side and whistled.

"No, I've never…not during the day." Jack hesitated, wondering how much he should tell. He decided that it couldn't hurt. "I don't do sunshine. I can't."

The fairy huffed, wagging her finger. Jack got the feeling she was echoing his words right backat him – _"How do you know if you've never tried?"_

"I have tried," he told her, settling back on a block of stone with one foot dangling towards the floor and the pulled up so he could rest his head on its knee. "I've been out when the sun's up. Even a few times during spring and fall." Mostly with Pitch, over a century ago when they'd explore the world's fears together rather than going out alone. "And I tried once on my own, ages ago. I snuck out. It wasn't good."

Babytooth frowned, settling delicately onto the part of his staff where the crook began. She stared at him, wide-eyed and expectant, waiting.

Jack sighed. "What, story-time now? There's nothing to tell." He leaned back against the wall, looking up at the high windows and their dazzling sun, trying not to think of how tired he was already, so early in the day. "I was stupid, okay? I was stupid and restless and bored and…"

And lonely. It had been a century ago, a short time after he'd received the bracelets, with Pitch's promise of protection hinting at freedoms to come. But then Pitch had become absorbed in some project, disappearing into the depths of the Realm for days at a time while mastered a new power, with which Jack was forbidden to interfere. After weeks of that, Jack saw a chance to slip away, just for a few hours, and – for the first and only time – he took it.

"It think it must have been spring. I wasn't really supposed to be around. Figured I'd drop a cold snap here and there, wake a few towns up, have some fun. Just little things. But it was so bright and there was much color around that I…I lost track of time."

Then it happened. One moment, he'd been riding the wind through the crags of a canyon in some northern mountains; the next, his power was gone. Jack had never forgotten how it felt, his strength sapping away as though sucked out through a straw, leaving his limbs numb and his digits tingling. It'd only been through sheer luck that he'd managed to hold onto his staff after he dropped out of the sky. Everything after that was pretty fuzzy.

"I got sick. Really sick. I couldn't move, I couldn't think. I thought…" Jack shook himself out of the memory. No good would come from getting stuck there. He'd made a mistake and moved on, lesson learned. That's what was important. "Pitch came to find me after that. He brought me home and I was laid up for days. After that, I was too weak to go out again for another year."

Babytooth scrunched her face and, again, Jack wished she spoke something a little more human. He couldn't tell if she didn't believe him or if she was simply emphasizing with him to the point of upsetting herself. Careful not to disrupt the staff, Jack leaned forward and rubbed the fairy's head with his finger.

"Hey," he said, "I'm okay. It was ages ago. Lesson learned, right? Better I know now than get into trouble later."

The fairy frowned at him between his fingers and chirped. Jack returned the frown, a bit annoyed. "Of course that's what Pitch told me. It's the truth."

Babytooth huffed. Without warning she took to the air and buzzed circles around him with nervous energy before dodging in, so quick that Jack couldn't catch her before she dove head-first into the pocket of his hood. A second later she shot back out, Jaime's tooth clutched in her little hands.

"Hey!" Jack leapt, using his staff to vault from the relatively smooth floor of the tower to the uneven halls, right on Babytooth's tail-feathers. "I told you, I'm not giving you that. Hand it over!"

This was the fourth time she'd tried snatching the tooth from him since he'd wrenched it out of her grasp at their first meeting. Jack wondered why she kept it up when it obviously wasn't going to work. Even if she knew the tunnels – which she didn't, which was why he always caught her – all the entrances were sealed shut and barred with magic. Without Pitch inside or his instruction, the Realm wouldn't let anyone leave.

He finally cornered her in a dead-end, where nothing but a few broken shelves and ancient, overturned potteries were waiting. Jack clutched Babytooth a bit more tightly this time, partially to keep the tooth from slipping away but mostly out of frustration. "If you keep randomly flying off like this you're going to get hurt. You know that?"

Babytooth puffed out her feathers from crest to tail. Jack couldn't see it past her neck, but he could feel it go all the way down his hand. He groaned.

"No, that's not a threat. You don't know how to get around in here. There is some dangerous stuff hiding in these halls, you've already gotten close to it more than once and if you go diving in without me you're liable to…"

A resounding _BANG_ echoed through the halls, cutting Jack off in mid-sentence. A startled Babytooth tried to duck into his hand, but Jack recognized the sound. It was the sound of a massive lock coming undone and it was close.

"Pitch." A grin slid over his face. "It's Pitch. He's back."

Babytooth did not share his excitement, to say the least. Her mismatched eyes went smaller and wider than he'd ever seen and her entire body stilled with fear. It suddenly occurred to Jack how bad this would look. Keeping a small thing like a tooth a secret was one thing. Having that same secret bring a tooth fairy – servant to _the_ Tooth Fairy, a Guardian, an enemy – into their home was quite another.

On instinct, Jack grabbed a mostly-intact piece of pottery from the shelf and slipped Babytooth underneath it, tooth and all. She gave a squeak of protest, which he shushed. "It's okay. Just stay put, okay? He'll never know you're here."

With Babytooth safely hidden, Jack snatched up his staff and darted back through the halls towards where the entrance had appeared. It was ever closer than he'd thought; as he rounded the second corner a Nightmare with a seaweed mane galloped to meet him. It swept around him like a current, nearly lifting him off his feet before it got a good sniff of the bracelets and took off again down the hall. Pitch swept through in its wake, wearing a sharp grin and thrumming with power.

"Hello Jack," he said warmly, mussing the boy's hair as he swept past. "Sorry, but we won't stay long. The game is afoot and so much is happening, just need to a gather a few final details and we'll be off."

Jack swallowed, trying to ignore how his heart sank. The plan was a good thing, it would make them believed in, it was worth a little time alone. "What's happening?" he asked, trying to tap into a bit of Pitch's excitement. "What's going on, what have you been doing? Can I help?"

Pitch laughed, the sound echoing down the tight and twisting halls. He waved a hand, sending the second of his two Nightmare accompaniments ahead with its fellow, only for it to break off down the opposite path of the first fork and disappear into the depths of the Realm.

"No, my boy. Where we're going is no place for you." Pitch's sharp teeth were too dulled and yellow to catch the pale light, but they seemed to glow anyway as he leaned in to whisper conspiratorially into the boy's ear. "The Guardians have taken the bait. Six weeks to Christmas and they're already clustered at the Pole, wondering where I've slipped off to, all of them together, all according to plan."

Jack swallowed hard. He wasn't privy to the exact details of Pitch's plan, but gathering all of the Guardians together seemed an awful big risk. Pitch had said before that he wanted to take out all four of them out in one fell swoop. With all the Nightmares on his side, Jack suspected he'd be able to do it, but still…he worried. Pitch had been beaten once before, after all.

Still. He had to have faith. He had to believe. It was all they had.

If Pitch noticed his flicker of fear, he didn't see fit to mention it. He'd already taken to pacing the hall with long strides, rubbing his hands and talking half-to himself in anticipation, the way he always did when he was particularly excited. "Oh _yes_, they'll be so distracted looking under beds and in closets that they won't even think about watching the home front until it's too late. And once the Tooth Palace falls…"

Jack nearly choked. He could only hope that Babytooth, in her hiding place, was too far ahead to hear. "You're going after…but that place is _crawling_ with fairies."

"Those little songbirds are nothing to fear," said Pitch with a dismissive wave. "You should see the nasty place, looks like it'd be knocked out by a strong wind. Maybe we'll go there together, once this is all over. For now the trap is set and all that's needed is a last regiment of Nightmares in place and the proper arms…ah, yes, here were are…"

The sea-maned Nightmare had returned, its black sand swirling around a box of ebon wood that was cracked and worn with age. This it delivered directly into Pitch's outstretched hands before rounding the Nightmare King again, nuzzling close to his back.

Pitch stroked the old box with affection, his fingers playing along the tarnished silver of the lock. He lifted the lid and drew a thin blade of gleaming iridescence as dark as melted night. Jack held his breath, knowing instinctively that the rapier was not of the normal world. This was something Pitch had brought from his old home, a remnant of the Dark Ages, when he'd been the most powerful creature in the world.

He would really do it, then. Start the battle. Lead from the front lines. Go to war against the Guardians.

Jack gripped his staff tight. This was it, then. Everything they'd been working towards and training for. It was finally time. "Take me with you."

Pitch went very still. His golden eyes flickered from the blade to Jack.

"Let me back you up." Jack drew himself up, determined not to break eye contact. He could do this. He was not afraid. "I can fight, you know I can. I've been keeping up with the training. I'm ready and I want to help. Take me with you."

Pitch's expression narrowed, the smile fading to something thin and tight. Jack hated that expression, and he hated it even more when it ruined Pitch's rare good moods, always because of something Jack did or said. It took all of Jack's courage not to back down.

"Please," he said again, stepping closer to his mentor. "It can't hurt anything, having a little extra power. I mean, you never–"

He couldn't finish. The hall lurched. His vision swam. He'd been tired after the training, tingling-fingers tired, but it hadn't been this bad. Now exhaustion swelled in him like smoke, sending the floor spinning out from under him. He stumbled and tried to catch himself with his staff, only for a slick of ice to appear beneath it.

Jack would have hit the ground if not for Pitch's hand shooting from the darkness to catch him, the long arm wrapping around him like a protective shadow.

"You stupid boy," Pitch said fondly, hooking the rapier onto his belt before setting Jack back on his feet. "You're in no shape to fight anything. You've worn yourself out again with all your playing around."

Frost dusted Jack's cheeks. He cursed himself in his mind. Why, why had he wasted so much ice for the sake of that fairy? She didn't even like him. He didn't have a surplus of power even at the best of times, he knew that, and he knew the plan was coming together. So stupid. He should have waited more.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, staring his feet. "I just…I want to help."

"I know you do," said Pitch, just as soft. He placed a long-fingered hand on each of Jack's shoulders, offering support. He leaned over the boy, closing the distance until their noses almost touched. "Do you believe in me, Jack?"

Jack sighed, glancing up without lifting his head. "Of course I do."

"Then that will be more than enough." Pitch squeezed the boy's shoulders and let his hands drop from there to his wrists, checking and double-checking the protective bonds. "Trust me. You help more than you know, just by being here."

His hands lingered momentarily on the bracelets before the sound of hoof-beats made him break away. The second Nightmare returned with a herd of its fellows in tow, all eager for battle, snorting hot sand and pawing the ground before they charged. With a laugh like thunder on a moonless night, Pitch allowed them to sweep him into their embrace, black sand swirling up and out through the halls until there was nothing left. Jack pressed back against the wall, eyes closed and arms raised to avoid the burn of flying sand, straining his ears for a farewell that didn't come.

It took him a moment after the loneliness set in to realize that the magic barriers that Pitch lowered to re-enter the Realm had not been replaced.

When he went looking for Babytooth again, she was gone.


	8. Two Fronts

Random aside: Babytooth's point of view is insanely fun to write. She thinks as fast as she flies and it's _awesome._ Which makes up for my action scenes being a bit…lame. I hope. OTL

**Chapter Seven: Two Fronts**

Babytooth – _ooh_ that felt so good, she'd never had a spoken name before only the notes and signs her sisters used to call and wouldn't they be _so_ jealous when they heard! – flew as high and as fast as he wings would take her, urging the south wind for an extra boost as she clutched Jamie Bennet's second lateral incisor close to her chest. All her instincts, her very core, was screaming to take the precious, precious tooth back home and tuck it away all cozy and safe, and she'd do that soon, but not yet, not now. Now, she had to get north, high north, highest north, the Pole. That's where Santa lived, Saint Nick, St. North. That's where her mother had gone, where her sisters had gone, where the guardians had gone, but they couldn't be there now they needed to be _home_or else it'd be terribly, terribly bad.

She felt sad leaving the nice boy – Jack, his name was Jack Frost, a pretty name but cold and crisp, it suited his teeth – behind in the dark with the Black man and his nasty Nightmares. But Jamie's tooth was her job, and it was her job to keep it safe, and more than that she had to keep all the teeth safe and if nasty Pitch Black got to do what he wanted then they wouldn't be safe anymore and it'd be awful for _everybody_.

So she flew. She flew so fast and so furious that she didn't even notice as the ground turned to water turned to ice, reflecting the orange and gold of a winter sun that barely rose above the horizon. Deep in the wintery crags she spotted a glimmer of light, electric light, _magic_light, and shot towards it, knowing it was Santa's workplace. As she drew closer, dozens and dozens of her sisters met her on the wind, some in-route on the same path as she while others tried to stop and give her instructions, something about a search they'd been doing all night long with the Easter Bunny's tunnels and Santa's machines and a dozen other things, but there was no time for that, she had to see Mother right now.

She dove down through the cold, thick glass and killed her speed, pulling up just short of the floor and rattling the bells of two arguing elves as she shot past. Santa's workshop was in chaos, beautiful, wonderful chaos, a mix of its-time-to-get-ready-for-Christmas wonder and the orderly buzz of home. Mother flew in the heart of it all, darting from one high corner of the meeting room to another, switching effortlessly between the coordination of the weird mass search and their never-ending job of collecting childrens' teeth.

Babytooth made a beeline for her mother, bursting through the ring of her sisters who fluttered by to receive their orders. She flew right up into Mother's face and chattered wildly because she had to get the information out as fast as she could, it was _so_important and we have to move now, Mother, now...

But Mother didn't listen! She caught Babytooth like a firefly, cradled her close, and said, "Woah, slow down there, Champ. What's going on? Where have you been?"

Babytooth took a deep breath, prepared to start again, but before she could her mother's eyes found the tooth in her hands. Mother trilled happily, her notes high and clear. "You found it, you really found it! Oh, you clever girl."

She plucked Jamie's tooth with delicate fingers and buzzed closer to the overhead lights, holding the tooth to the lamp for a better look. She sighed dreamily. "He's such a smart boy, isn't he? Look how well he's brushed. This has to be the sharpest, _smartest_lateral incisor I have ever seen. Now!" Quick as a flash, she turned back to Babytooth, holding the precious bit of enamel out for her to retrieve. "You be sure to take this straight back home and tuck it away where it'll be nice and safe."

Babytooth squealed in frustration.

"Don't be silly sweetie, of course it'll be safe!" Mother laughed. She fluttered towards the floor again, spiralling the room to gather her little cloud of scattered fairies, with Babytooth hurrying to be the one right at her side at all times. "And as soon as it is, you come right back here and get your search formation orders. It's vitally important that we set every eye we can spare looking for this boy."

With a swipe of her hand, she turned Babytooth face-to-face with a figure of golden sand, conjured by the Sandman as an example. Given the medium, it couldn't be exactly right - the gold was much too warm, though its sparkly fragments did resemble the sun on newfallen snow - but it was close enough that Babytooth knew him, her Jack Frost boy, in an instant. She shrieked long, loud, and high, her shrill note echoing throughout the Pole. It startled mother to the point that she almost dropped Jamie's tooth and instantly drew the other Guardians' attention from their tasks.

Babytooth started up again with the chattering, information spilling out, more important than ever. Mother's feathers bristled with concern and her sisters buzzed with nervous energy, trying to catch every word.

"Slow down!" Mother implored, cradling Babytooth close. "What do you mean, Jack Frost took the tooth? Why on earth would he want it?"

That, Babytooth didn't know, but it didn't matter anyway. Everything she'd seen and done came tumbling out, one fact after another, so fast that Mother almost forgot to translate for the other Guardians. There was following the tooth into the dark place, searching around and getting lost there trying to sniff it out; then meeting her Jack, the boy of ice and snow and laughter who was so nice even if he did steal teeth and take them away. There was being hidden by him and finally, most vitally, overhearing the Pitch Black man's words plotting their destruction of their precious home.

By the time she'd finished, Mother was in a panic, recalling all the fairies with shouts and magic orders to return home, lock down the teeth, and prepare for war. Babytooth was more than ready to shoot off and join them, but before she could she was caught again, this time by Santa. Santa, whose blue eyes held a twinkle that had nothing to do with Christmas cheer. Santa, who mother said time and time again had once been a mighty terror, a warrior bandit king feared by all for his skill and more, for his tatics on the battlefield. For the first time, Babytooth saw a glimmer of that man who used to be in the gleam of Santa's eye.

It was Santa who came up with their plan. It was a good plan, but risky and scary too. It filled her body with humming excitement and nerves, in part out of fear for her home and her family and in part from anticipation at returning to rescue her newest friend. The Easter Bunny didn't like it. Babytooth could see the protests building on his tongue as clear as she could see the elodent dentition in his jaw. As they darted for the dark depths of the North Pole's ground floor and hanger bay, Babytooth could only hope that all his arguments were wrong.

* * *

"North, this is not a good idea."

North snorted, tossing a fur-lined coat onto his back in mid-stride. "Your opinion is dully noted, Bunny."

"It's not an opinion, it's a fact." Bunny dodged a pair of Yetis piled down with bags of coal, his claws skittering along the ice-and-stone floor. Even the dim tunnels leading from workshop to launch pad were crawling with the hairy helpers, shouting ahead to have the sleigh – deathtrap that it was – ready for North's departure. "If Pitch is going after the Tooth Palace, we ought'a focus all our power there to provide the best defense."

"Tooth Palace already has best defense. You know as well as I do the fierceness of Toothiana's armies."

The last Tooth Fairy along for the ride – the one with the mismatched eyes and a single golden plume – fluttered between them with a confident peep, proudly puffing out her chest. She doubled around on the backdraft of their passing, tucking herself into Sandy's golden hair.

North regarded her fondly, a rosy-checked grin flashing over his face. "My point exactly," he said. "The one in need of protection now is Jack Frost."

Bunnymund huffed, bounding ahead into the openness of the ice-hanger so he could stand upright, blocking North's path. "And what if he ain't?"

The implication hung in the air like poison gas. North set his wide jaw, a deep rumbling in his chest expressing both frustration and disappointment. "Man in Moon would not make ally of Pitch a Guardian."

"We don't know he's meant to be a Guardian," Bunny said for what felt like the hundredth time. "We don't know the first blasted thing about him. Maybe Manny wanted to give us a heads up before the kid took us by surprise and froze all our tails off."

The little Tooth squeaked indignantly, scattering dream-sand as she darted into Bunny's face, her beak nearly touching his nose. Sandy frowned, his feelings apparently caught between the two arguments, so his pictures remained silent.

North huffed. "Even if that is true, it is better to fight one battle on two fronts than two against same enemy. You see, da?"

Bunnymund sighed, gently brushing the fairy aside and pressing a hand over his eyes. "Fine," he said, stepping out of the way. "But if this goes south the blame's all yours, you hear me?"

North bellowed with laughter and slapped Bunny on the back with enough force to floor someone who wasn't six feet of solid muscle trained in the ancient art of Tai-Chi. In the next step, he bounded into his waiting sleigh with all the vigor of a much younger man, wrapping thick leather reins twice around his hand before he snapped them. As the reindeer picked up speed, their driver paused just long enough to draw a glass orb from the lining of his cloak and toss it to Sandman, shouting, "For the trip home! Is so much easier than tunnels."

By the time Bunny managed to lift an angry shaking paw, the sleigh had gained speed and tipped over the edge of the runway. It disappeared into the swirling ice, North's laughter echoing all the way down and out of the mountain.

Bunnymund groaned, his shoulders slumping. The Sandman shared a glance with their tiny buzzing guide before floating up to pat the rabbit on the shoulder, offering a smile and a thumb's up. Everything, he promised, would turn out okay.

"I hope you're right, Sandy." With a final sigh, Bunny tapped the ground twice with his foot, summoning a wide hole where ice gave way to warm ground. His paw cupped the fairy briefly, guiding her into the tunnel's warm updraft. "C'mon you little sheila. Let's get this over with."

The little Tooth needed no further coaxing. With a determined squeak she darted into the tunnels, her whistles and bird calls echoing back to the surface as bright as a summer morn. Bunny and Sandman were right on her heels. The hole closed up instantly behind them, cutting off the cold air of the North Pole and sweeping them into the mystery of things to come.

* * *

With a flash of white light and a rush of wind, North's mechanical wonder-sleigh burst into the inky blue sky of Punjam Hy Loo. For the first time in centuries, he was not instantly surrounded by a chattering crowd of Tooth Fairies darting to and from their daily assignments. Their songs and whistles were still there, to be certain, but they lingered much lower than ever before, echoing through their cavernous Palace and carried higher only by the occasionally stray breeze.

North descended quickly, bringing the sleigh in to land on the highest platform of the largest spire. Twin sabers clanked at his side as he leapt from the sleigh, picking out the larger form of Toothiana several stories below and calling out to her, "Tooth! What is situation here?"

"Everything looks fine so far," she said, her head darting quickly to take in her domain before she flew up to meet him. "We've got about fifty percent of the store locked down and the rest should be secure within the hour. Did you see?"

"See what?" For the moment, all North could see was Toothiana herself, admiring the change that had come over his old friend. She spoke ever so slightly slower and moved with a more deliberate grace. It seemed that some of her usual maniac energy now channeled into echoes of the vengeful warrior queen she'd been when they first met.

The silver scimitar in her hand completed the effect, its blade gleaming as she turned it to catch the sunlight overhead. "The forest. It's too dark. I'd bet my eye teeth that's where he's hiding with those awful nightmares. I can't believe I didn't notice before I left. He must have been laying the ground work all week and I didn't even see!"

"You were not looking," North reasoned with a shrug, pacing restlessly to the edge of the platform. "None of us were. There were shadows in the workshop at new moon, in places where shadows should not be, and yet I did not think of Pitch. In truth, I suspect I did not want to."

He peered down at the forest that ringed Toothiana's castle, searching its darkness. He was not familiar enough with it to tell if the shadows that lurked there were natural, but he could see the things that moved in them, creatures of fear flitting by just fast enough to be caught in the corner of one's eye.

Tooth watched with him, hovering in the air beside his head. "What do you suppose he's after this time?" she asked.

North shrugged. "Pitch wants what he has always wanted: to cause fear and to corrupt the sweet dreams of children."

"I really thought we'd seen the end of him. It seemed so permanent last time and it's been…what, four, five hundred years?" Tooth turned her eyes to the murals on her walls, the smiling faces of children that reminded her each day of her appointed rounds. "I was so sure that it was over, that we were safe. That _they_ were safe."

Grimly, North set his lips into a thin line. "Me too."

"And now this whole thing with Jack Frost." Toothiana ruffled her feather. The motion rolled through her shoulders, over her wings, and down to her toes. "He's only a boy, North. An unknown. What does he have to do with any of this?"

"That remains to be seen." Tooth turned her head as though to speak again, but North cut her off, raising one hand as the other brought a finger to his lips. "Shush. Do you see that? Look there."

The shadows beneath the trees had stilled. All of them. Leaves rustled on their branches and animals flitted through the canopy, yet not one of the shadows moved to match. A cold wind howled from the forest's depths, thick with the bite of a winter chill that this temperate place did not know.

It silenced the fairies of Punjam Hy Loo, who tensed in preparation for the battle to come. Toothiana rose to meet the wind, her wings a blur and her weapon ready.

"He's coming," she whispered, barely enough to be heard.

North drew twin sabers of his own, bracing his stance against the smooth tile. When next the wind howled, it carried with it a familiar and bone-chilling laugh. The wide eyes of which wonder's guardian was so proud scanned the tree-line, then the Palace, searching for their foe.

In an instant, the Nightmare King was there.

He rode upon a massive horse of black sand and golden fire, appearing apparently from nowhere in the sky above the trees. A wide grin stretched across his face like the wound left by a jagged knife, his teeth sharp and yellowed like an ancient shark's frozen while devouring its prey.

The shadows took this as their cue to rise as one. They filled the sky with swirling darkness, arching for the Palace, fierce and silent in their fury, determined to pull the golden structure to the ground.

"Wings up, ladies!" Toothiana shouted to her brood, shooting through the sky to meet Pitch head-on. "Take no prisoners!"

The fairies answered their queen's call with a battle cry and took to the air like gemstone-colored bees. The engaged the enemy on every front, banding together in groups of three and four to scatter black sand in all directions. North took it upon himself to personally dispatch the first two-dozen that approached the highest tower, then took to his sleigh to follow Tooth into the air.

To his delight, Pitch's eyes widened at the sight of him, his grin falling into an angry scowl. He shouted something, but between the wind and the adrenaline pounding in North's ears he couldn't make out the words.

Perhaps if he had, he would have expected the sharp blast of hoarfrost and ice shards before it caught him full in the face.


	9. Opposing Sides

So. Real life is kind of kicking my butt at the moment, which is why this took so long. But I hope an extra-long chapter will make for it. I probably could've split it into two, but it wouldn't have gotten it up any faster and I figured it was better to get the whole fight over and done with in one shot. Also, I'm crossing my fingers in the hope that everyone's coming across as suitably badass. Because they are all badass, every last one.

**Chapter Eight: Opposing Sides**

High over the mountains, Jack Frost faltered in the wind's embrace. His temperature spiked and his vision swam. He cursed, hooking a foot around the base of his staff to keep himself in the air. Of all the times for a fainting spell! He should have seen it coming. He'd known he was weak. But still.

The wind guided him back to his hole beneath the broken bed, lingering in the Realm's dark halls as though afraid he couldn't make the trek alone. Jack tried to wave it off, leaning his weight on his staff instead of the air. The wind remained.

Maybe it was right. Maybe he was too weak, too pathetic, and stupid too. He'd wasted too much time searching the Realm for Babytooth. He should've shot after her the moment he realized the defenses were down, should've known she'd flee with his tooth and Jamie's memory the moment he got the chance. If he'd gone, he might have had a chance. If he'd gone, he might have caught her in spite of the wide openness and bright colors of Outside.

But no. Like an idiot, he'd wanted to believe that she would stay, that she might have actually liked him. That she could have been a friend.

Stupid. Stupid stupid _stupid_.

Jack pulled his hood over his head, letting his clothes swallow him up as he slunk from shadow to shadow. Better he stay here, where he belonged and nobody could see what a screw-up he really was. He couldn't be trusted with anything, couldn't even look after his own health or keep tabs on a single fairy. No wonder Pitch didn't want him in the field. He was useless. Pathetic.

His thoughts circled this way for he didn't know how long. Time in the Realm could be strange, especially when dark thoughts were involved. It hungered for them, a craving that Jack rarely filled. The things it craved usually felt wrong, like they disagreed with something in his very core. But today, he was exhausted and deserved every wretched thought. So for a time, he allowed the Realm to feed.

Eventually, he found himself tucked away in a dark cranny off the central room, near enough to the windows for the wind to escape if it liked but far enough for Jack to avoid their light. He contemplated going to sleep, but before he could his nose caught a strange scent, warm and foreign in the still air. It smelled of melted chocolate mixed…flowers? What in the world…?

"Crikey. We sure this is the place?"

Jack froze. Literally. Ice crackled over every inch of his skin, a paper-thin shield against the world. A second later his training kicked in, frozen shards raining silently as he leapt to his feet. He pressed deeper into the dark, holding his staff at the ready, expecting an attack.

The voice – same as before, heavy with an accent that he didn't know – spoke again, echoing from the central chamber just around the curve of the hall. "Don't ask me. All I did was follow the sheila, she's the one who'll tell you."

Jack held his breath, fighting down the nerves churning in his gut. Intruders. Strangers in the Realm. Burglars, maybe, or thieves – enemies! This had never happened before, not in three hundred years. His mind raced. How did they get here? What were they after? Why?

Slowly, Jack lowered his bare hand to the wall, spreading ice down the stone, across the floor, and up the opposite wall. Ice couldn't reflect much, but if he could only catch a glimpse…

There. A flash of gold, much too bright and gleaming for any denizen of the Realm. Sandman. And there with him, a buzz of wings and bolt of green. Babytooth. The little snitch…!

The voice, which couldn't belong to either but seemed the only among them able to talk, sighed in frustration. "Fine, fine, so we're in the right place. Then where's this Frostbite we've heard so much about?"

Jack's hands tightened on his staff. Pitch's words echoed in his mind. _"I have many enemies who wouldn't hesitate to use you against me…" _And the Guardians – because who else could it be? – were the worst enemies of all.

Fear shot through him. If they caught him, what would they do? To him? To Pitch? But that vanished as quick as it came. Cold anger swelled to replace it. Who were these "Guardians," sneaking around like thieves, plotting to snatch him behind Pitch's back and turn the tide in their war? Who did they think they were, targeting the protégé of the Nightmare King? How _dare_ they invade his home?

His fury spread into the air, dropping the temperature by five, ten, twenty degrees and more. Jack tugged his hood further over his eyes and darted silently into the shadows, leaving nothing but a flicker of frost behind.

Whatever the Guardians wanted, he wasn't going down without a fight. And in spite of himself – in spite of how tired he was and how wary he knew he should be – he was almost looking forward to it.

* * *

"Did it just get cold in here?"

Sandy shrugged. He supposed it might have been cold, but he was so used to the frigid air over the clouds that he didn't notice such things anymore. Bunnymund shivered dramatically and rubbed his paws up and down his arms, but he seemed the only one of their trio affected. Toothiana's small helper – their guide to this place – darted around the massive chamber, peering into the shadowed crevices and calling out with whistles and chirps.

This was not the sort of home Sandy had imagined for his runaway boy asleep in a tree. Indeed, as a creature of dreams, he suspected that he understood more of this place and its wrongness than either of his companions. Wherever they were, it didn't follow the normal rules of time and space. It seemed to exist only in the place between spaces, its form semi-permanent and solid only because its resident – residents? – required it to be.

Ignoring Bunnymund's complaints, Sandy drifted around the ground level, tendrils of his sand searching for walls and trying to judge the true size of the massive room. Iron creaked overhead as massive cages swung on their chains, providing eerie accompaniment to the fairy's search-song, which received no reply.

Sandy drifted ever higher and, in the apparently empty space beside an arched bridge, caught a flash of silvery-white. He found that the darkness there was in fact a wall, one with a thin rectangle cut out of the stone, like the ventilation shafts in ancient castles. Sandy peered through this hole with one eye and discovered another room, this one tiny but glistening white. Ice covered the floor. Frost covered the walls. The bed was hidden by a massive drift of snow serving a blanket's role. Figures of carved and shaped ice, some finished, some not, littered the floor. A frozen shelf held a few of particular pride on display for any who entered to see.

Sandy clapped his hands silently, relief rushing through him. Now _that_ was more like it. That was a home for Jack Frost.

"Sandy, watch out!"

Bunnymund's shouted warning was nearly lost in the groan of shattering metal from overhead. A gray blur whipped Sandy out of the air seconds before a cage plummeted through the space he'd been standing in moments before. It crashed to the ground and shattered there, its doors and decorations twisted at bizarre angles.

Sandy popped from the rabbit's grip like a balloon and righted himself in mid-air. He signed frantically – what happened, what's going on, where's the little one? – but Bunny wasn't listening. His green eyes locked on the fallen cage's broken chain, which wore a thick coat of ice around its scattered links.

"I knew it," he growled, drawing a boomerang for each hand. He straightened to his full height and bellowed into the darkness, "Jack Frost!"

A laugh – mischievous and ever so slightly dark – echoed through the room as his response. Tooth's fairy darted back to them and flew frantic circles around Sandman's head as Bunny sniffed the air.

A second later the rabbit was off, bounding across the bridge. Sandy and the fairy hurried after him, but they were no match for his speed on all fours. Without warning, Bunnymund leapt ten feet straight off the floor, bounced off a hidden wall, and ricocheted from one of the hanging cages before flinging himself at a high perch that had, until that moment, gone unseen.

"There you are yeh little –"

_Bang!_ A ball made of more ice than snow hit him straight between the eyes. A second, larger and more solid, caught him in the stomach and knocked out his air. Jack Frost leapt from the shadows, hood up and staff bared. He kicked off Bunny's head with both bare feed and send the winded Pooka tumbling while he arced through the air like a snowflake. He alighted briefly on the still-swinging cage and vanished once more, leaving only his laugh behind.

Sandy couldn't summon a pillow of sand fast enough to keep Bunny from hitting the ground, but he did manage to cushion the blow. He waved his arms wildly, trying to get the rabbit to understand: No, this isn't the right way. We're not here to fight, we're _friends_.

Bunnymund laughed, which quickly turned to painful coughing as he tried to force air back into his lungs. "I think the kid's made it clear he doesn't want to be friends, Sandy."

The little tooth fairy squawked indignantly, but before she could tell Bunnymund off an orb of solid ice – a hailstone the size of a softball – missed her by mere inches and shattered on the floor. A rain of such stones followed one after another. The fairy shrieked in distress and ducked into Sandy's collar for protection while he formed an umbrella of sand against the shrapnel. Bunnymund bounded backwards to get out of rage, covering his face with one arm and cursing up a storm.

The laugh came again, this time accompanied by words. "Sheesh, Flopsy. I don't even know what half of that meant. You sure you're supposed to be guarding kids with a mouth like that?"

Six stories overhead, Jack Frost balanced on the roof of a cage, holding onto the chain with one hand. The aged wood of his staff glistened with blue frost. His stance was nearly casual, but even Sandy, who was not a warrior, could see the tension in his limbs.

The brief smile that flickered past with the teen's taunt faded quickly, his expression turning guarded and cold. "You're not welcome here," he said. "Get out."

Was that a tremble Sandman heard in his tone? It _was_. Jack Frost was afraid. Of Bunny? Of Sandy? Of the apparent threat on his own.

Sandy put his head in his hands in a silent groan. This was going terribly. What he'd give for a reset button.

"We're not going anywhere, you little bugger," Bunnymund snapped in response, his old skills as a diplomat apparently clouded by frustration and distrust. "We've got business with you, now get your frozen butt down here."

"That wasn't a request," said Jack, shifting his stance and raising his staff.

The little fairy called to him, her song pleading and desperate. Please listen to reason, we're not here to hurt you, we're _friends_. Jack hesitated. His breath caught. There was hurt in those eyes.

Then he brought down the staff in a mighty sweep and summoned the wind.

* * *

Tooth shouted in alarm as North's sleigh spiraled out of the sky, the thick hair of its team and driver coated solid with ice. It crashed down on a gleaming golden turret and skittered until it nearly fell from the painted edge, but the reindeer managed to catch a hold at last minute before collapsing against each other with bellows of pain. Toothiana hesitated in her attack as the Nightmares closed in on the fallen craft, but that was all it took for North to leap from the overturned machine, his beard frozen and his face bleeding, ripping through the shadows with twin blades.

Then her ears caught Pitch's chuckle on the wind and the old fury took hold of her again. Tooth bellowed a battle cry and shot at Pitch, her blade flashing in search of his throat. Pitch parried with his rapier, its onyx-black familiar and cold. Man in the Moon, it'd been centuries since anyone had seen it. If Toothiana had her way, it would have been millennia more.

She went on full offensive, striking every chance she got only to be blocked and parried as they spun through the air, she on her wings and he supported by a towering Nightmare. The assault lasted barely a minute, in which she dealt a score of blows. Then his off-hand caught hers and brought them to a standstill. In an instant, a bracelet of ice spread over the feathers on her wrist.

"My dear Toothiana," said Pitch through his teeth, doing nothing to disguise the utter disgust that laced his every word. "How lovely to see you in top form."

Tooth didn't grace the taunt with any dignified response. Instead she yanked her arm back while he continued to hold and tried to lop off his hand. He released her, but not fast enough. A long gash tore him open from wrist to elbow. He snarled with pain and flung himself back, summoning another icy gale with a slash of his sword.

Tooth – as sworn to her duty as any mortal postman – charged forward, pushing through the sleet and snow. Below, all throughout her palace, the battle raged as her fairies pushed back against the Nightmares. She felt their every strum of anger and fear and it made her furious. The fairies were her children and this was her home and Pitch had no right to be here!

But before she could reach him again, her wings stilled without her say-so. They were frozen, thick ice built up in layers she hadn't noticed in her anger. Storms couldn't do this, not to her. What kind of power had Pitch found?

She had no time to think of it. She caught a final glimpse of Pitch's smirk and fell.

North vaulted through the open air between two spires and caught Tooth in mid-leap. Their combined weight plus the ice and snow rattled the spire where they landed like an ornament shaking on the branch of a tree. Tooth found herself engulfed in the warmth of North's coat and arms until they came to full stop and he uncurled to set her on her feet.

"Tooth. Are you all right?"

"I can't fly." The words came as a half-shriek, proven as she tried to flutter her wings and only succeeded in stretching her shoulder. Panic clenched heart in Tooth's chest. She took several deep breaths, willing the fear away. It's only ice, it's only ice, it's only… "Get if off me, North. Please."

North, in an instant of understanding, turned his strong and steady hands to stripping the ice from her wings. Tooth's violet eyes darted between ice-coated spires, searching for the flash of black that had disappeared. "How could he do this? Pitch doesn't have this kind of power."

"I do not know," admitted North. Tooth could hear the scowl, imagining him glancing around them, his hands ready to take up his blades even as he attended to her feathers. "Other wing now, quickly."

Tooth turned as he asked. A second later she muffled a cry of pain and sorrow as a fair somewhere far below was engulfed and vanished without a trace. Her smaller selves were almost as resilient as she was, Pitch had to know that. He hadn't been trying to kill them. Still, losing one was a harsh blow, and worse, Tooth received a full blast of her little one's last memories, dropping her briefly right into the heart of the fight.

"Tooth?"

"They're taking my fairies." The weakness of the queen's sorrow was quickly swallowed by a new rush of anger, her freed wings buzzing furiously in North's hands. "Those things are taking my fairies, rounding them up like, like _animals_! Pitch! Where'd he go? Show yourself you coward!"

The King of Nightmares did not appear at her call – of course he didn't, the infuriatingly smug creep – but four of his Nightmares did. These were different from the others, taller and stronger, dark and chaotic colors swirling in their sands. One bore the broken horn of a disgraced unicorn, another the long seaweed mane of a kelpie. They surrounded North and Tooth at compass points, circling ominously. The Guardians pressed back-to-back, her wings buzzing against his shoulders, their blades ready to counter any attack.

At an unheard signal, the Nightmares lunged, ribbons of black sand spilling in their wake. What followed was flurry of flashing metal, two against four, each side moving in tandem as though all were one with their comrades. Metal flashed and sand hot as fresh tar spilled on the colored ground. A Nightmare with a flaming mane was rent beyond repair, its comrades retreating as its form scattered to the winds.

Three blackened nubs clattered to the floor. Tooth knew them from a distance and dropped to her knees, her stomach lurching in horror. She gathered the tiny, ruined teeth in her hands and whispered, "No. Please, no."

Pitch's laugh, cold and triumphant, announced his reappearance. He stepped from the shadows of spire across the way, slowly clapping his hands in mock applause.

"Well done. Very well done. You've learned my little secret." The sing-song, satisfied tone he held made Tooth's feathers ruffle in disgust. The Nightmare King stretched his smirk to show off every last pointed, shark-like tooth in his maw. "Is it just the two of you, then? I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. I was _so _looking forward to seeing the Big Four, together again."

He stepped again into the shadows, reappearing from another, closer than before. He barely spared the battle below them a glance before slinking around his perch like an eel. "Did you like my show on the globe, North? Got you all together."

North made a sound like an angry reindeer and stomped his massive boot. Toothiana, clutching the ruined teeth, shot into the air.

"Pitch!" she shouted. "You've got three seconds to call those beasts off my fairies or I'll –"

"You'll what?" In the blink of an eye, Pitch was on another spire altogether, standing upside down as though it were normal. "Put a quarter under my pillow? You're not all that you were anymore, either of you. You've gone soft, like those children you coddle. But, to be fair, you're not the only ones who've changed…"

He raised his off-hand, showing off how the cold he'd summoned had closed over the wound, forming a gauntlet ice that gleamed white in sharp contrast to the rest of him. Tooth had no taste for such things, but she could see North's eyes – wide with wonder, focusing on every detail, analyzing the magic from the outside to unravel their enemy's secrets.

Whatever the truth, Pitch did not allow them to linger. HE lowered his arms and narrowed his golden eyes. "So where is the Easter Bunny? And the Sandman? I wouldn't think they'd abandoned you to fight me all on your own. And so close to Christmas, too. Are they that scared?"

"Scared?" North barked a thunderous laugh, jabbing a saber to point at the Nightmare King. "Of what is there to be scared? You? Bah! We are Guardians, we do not fear the likes of you. WE sealed you up once before and we will do so again without fail."

Pitch sealed his jaw and hissed. It clearly took some effort to force his mask of nonchalance back into place, but he managed it, flexing his frost-covered hand.

"Oh well," he said, just loud enough to carry over the fervor of battle. "I suppose it doesn't matter. Just makes it less of a challenge wiping you both off the map right here and now."

With a renewed battle cry, Toothiana lead a new charge against him, with North leaping just behind. Tooth dodged the ice as Santa parried the Nightmare King's blade. The old rivalry burned new as far below, the battle for the Tooth Palace and all its riches raged on.

* * *

Jack shot through the Realm on a current of ice-cold Northern air, dipping and weaving through the spiraling curves. The muffled thumps and heavily-accented cursing stayed solidly behind him, but every now and again he'd take a turn, spot a flash of gold or green, and have to drop from the wind's embrace to double back and slip away again, leaving only snowflakes and ice slicks in his wake.

The Guardians were trying to corner him, box him in like a rat in a trap Dodging in their efforts was almost fun, in a heart-poundingly terrifying sort of way. The rabbit – Bunny, the _Easter_ Bunny – was faster than him by a lot, but he didn't know the tunnels and kept running into things if he went full-speed. And Sandman wasn't coming after him as aggressively as Jack knew he could. For all his pudgy softness and friendly golden smiles, that guy was supposed to have all of Pitch's skill with dream-sand and more, being its creator. Jack wondered why the man was holding back, but in the end it didn't matter. It gave him a chance. That was all he needed to know.

He whistled to the wind, whispering a plan more complex than his usual requests of "pick me up" and "take me home." Jack could not command the wind, but in a fight it was on his side even if it didn't like the tight halls and enclosed rooms of the Realm. His flight slowed enough to catch sight of the Bunny on his tail. Jack made a rude gesture, which earned him a boomerang mere inches over his head. He dodged it on the way back and ducked ahead, never slipping completely out of sight as he lured the rabbit further into the spiraling hall.

As they came to the end of the spiral, Jack lowered his staff to the floor, coating it with the thickest, slipperiest ice he could muster. This would take timing, and that was all up to the wind now. Just a little further. A little further…

He burst into the Nightmare's chamber, the wide open room with its bottomless pit and thin path along curved walls. The wind howled through the hole at the top, snapping Jack into a sudden updraft that carried him into the empty glass basin still suspended over the open pit. As planned, the backdraft hit the Easter Bunny just as his paws touched the ice, sending him tumbling down the slick. Jack slid into the curve of the basin just in time to see the massive rabbit slid right off the end of his ice trail and tumble, head-over-tail, into the endless hole.

"Yes!"

But Jack's celebration came too soon. A ribbon of golden sand snapped from the hall, wrapped around the rabbit's foot, and dragged him back to safety. The Sandman turned up at the other end. Jack groaned in frustration.

He couldn't keep this up. He could feel his powers waning, water dripping from his staff as its frost melted away. There was nowhere left to run, nowhere to go. Wind could carry him through the hold in the roof, but to what end? He'd only collapse in the sunlight. Then they'd find him, and then where would he be?

Down below, the Sandman flickered through his golden signs, trying to get Jack's attention. Was he calling for surrender? Making demands? Jack couldn't tell, not from here. His distance vision was already starting to go.

Please, he thought. I need more. More time, more power, more anything to keep them away. Please please please _please_…

And then he felt it. Nestled away, somewhere that seemed both deep inside and distant, he found a reserve of raw power the extent of which he'd never known. Jack seized it without wondering where it might originate and dragged it, kicking of screaming, through his staff and into the real world.

The storm it brought was more than he'd ever thought possible. Within seconds, he'd completely lost control.

* * *

Looking back on it all after the fact, Pitch should have known what was happening the moment his six silvery, frozen Nightmares rose as one to escape the battle without so much as a warning whine. Born as they were of Jack's mind, that breed was fiercely possessive of the boy's fear, savoring it all for themselves and taking personal offense when something else brought it to light.

But as they fled into the shadows, Pitch was embroiled in his sky-high battle with the two Guardians, relishing every slash and blow though none had yet scattered feathers or broken skin. North bounded from pillar to pillar with more power than grace, following Pitch like a dog on the hunt and tearing through the Nightmares the barred his way like tissue paper; while Toothiana, in her maternal fury, was a blur of emerald, sapphire and singing silver.

And yet, neither were his match, not with winter at his beck and call. Pitch revealed in his raw power, his laugh echoing through the cavern with every flurry and blast of sleet. He delighted in the thought of his old rivals brought low, forced at least to acknowledge him as their superior. Soon both bandit and queen would be at his mercy and the Palace would fall, leaving him a clear and open path right into the minds of children where he belonged…

But that was not to be.

Without warning, his cold power was dragged away. He felt it pulling against the current in his veins as though someone had hit a switch sending it into reverse. Even the ice that had stitched together his wound was dragged away, evaporating into the air.

Pitch hissed, clutching the wound against his chest. Only his centuries of prowess on the battlefield allowed him to dodge Toothiana's next swipe. It didn't need to land anyway. Realization hit him as hard as any blow.

Sandman and the Pooka weren't here. Why?

_Because they were after Jack._

Rage boiled in Pitch's heart, spreading into the shadows, which leapt at his call and knocked his battling opponents aside. How? How had they known? Centuries of rules and regulations and guarded secrets to protect his great advantage in this new war, all of it for naught. The Guardians knew, they'd found him, they were trying to rob the Nightmare King!

He dropped from the pillar on which he stood, leaving North and Toothiana frozen in surprise. A high whistle piercing as a gunshot echoed through the cavern as he summoned the Nightmares to his side. Onyx, his favored steed, caught him meters from the ground and galloped for the shadows of the trees, which opened wide to welcome them in. The space between spaced folded and bended to carry them home.

As suddenly as they had appeared, the Nightmare King and his army vanished into the air, leaving two confused Guardians and a score of baffled fairies to pick up the pieces of their shattered home.

* * *

Find Jack Frost, North said. He needs protection, North said. He could be a target, North said.

Bunnymund cursed the blasted North in every language he knew, clinging to the room's one and only door in the hope that maybe the hurricane-force winds wouldn't suck him in for another encounter with the bottomless pit. Tooth's fairy clung with equal desperation to the ruff on his neck, her tiny shrieks lost in the howl of the wind. Even Sandy had trouble standing his ground –

the storm was so fierce and the air so heavy with ice that he couldn't properly form his creations. It didn't stop him from trying though, his hands cupped around a spiral of sand while his body was braced against the curve of the wall.

In the middle of all the chaos was Jack Frost, Jack-freaking-Frost, balanced with his staff in the center of a great glass bowl that was now nearly filled with ice and snow. To think, Bunny assumed they'd had him cornered when he'd failed to dump them down the whole. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and then he'd pulled out a private indoor blizzard just for them.

No. Nuh-uh. Enough was enough. The Easter Bunny was done. They'd wasted enough time proving North wrong and now it was time for a tactical retreat.

"Sandy!" he shouted over the wind, tucking the fairy into his bandolier so she wouldn't get blown away. "Give me the snow globe, we're leaving."

Sandy shook his head, fierce winds stripping the sand from his hair.

"Now, Sandy!" Bunnymund dug his claws into the wall and dragged himself along the ledge, his teeth chattering and his ears nearly frozen. He grasped the Sandman's arms, pulling the little man around and disturbing whatever spiral of sand he'd been trying to conjure up. Sandy shook him off furiously and tossed him North's snow-globe to shoo him away, his focus locked on the project at hand.

As Bunny called up the North Pole, shaking the orb until it appeared in the glass, a series of whinnies and shrieks echoed from overhead. A moment later they were set upon by half-a-dozen gleaming black-and-silver Nightmares that snorted ice crystals and rode the wild winds as though they had been born for it.

Bunny caught the first right in the face with a powerful kick from a hind leg, slashed a second through the shoulder with a boomerang in his off-hand, and smashed the snow-globe against the nearest wall. A swirling portal to the heart of North's workshop opened in the dark stone. Bunymund grabbed Sandy by the scruff of his neck and leapt through to safety.

He didn't glance back. If he had, he might have seen the tiny golden dream escape its master's hands and dart, hidden, into the winding halls. Or perhaps he might have noticed how the storm's winds died, leaving a frozen wasteland behind. Or perhaps, he might have caught the final glimpse of Jack Frost pitching forward into the snow he himself had summoned, unconscious from exhaustion before his body settled in the glass.

But Bunny didn't look back. All he saw was a rush of color and cold air, right before he landed unceremoniously in the center of North's globe room and scared a Yeti housekeeper half to death.

* * *

Jack woke sometime later to a choir of frightened chips and frozen breath against his face. He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by pale nightmares, who glared down at him with their cold silvery eyes. His head pounded. His limbs were numb. His body refused to move.

The Nightmares parted, clearing the way for Pitch, who appeared with more of the black sand beasts at his sides. The 'mares stomachs buzzed with chattering emerald bees. The Nightmare King peered down at his charge with drawn features and a sorrowful frown, as if Jack had done nothing less in the last few hours than break his heart in every conceivable way.

"Oh Jack," he whispered. "What have you done?"

What had he done, indeed.


	10. Fallout and Aftermath

**Chapter Nine: Fallout and Aftermath**

North grunted under the weight of his sleigh, throwing all his strength into his shoulder. With a metallic groan, the great machine tipped back onto its runners, settling uneasily on the smooth stone of the spire. The reindeer – who, thankfully, had not been injured in either battle or the crash – snorted and tossed their heads, itching to be back in their rightful place.

"Tishe, tishe, Rachmaninoff," North soothed, stroking the snout of his lead. Normally, yetis hitched the team, but North had raised these deer himself, fed on magic milk that granted flight and speed. They knew their master's voice and hands and submitted to his guidance without complaint.

He was just hooking the final doe, Pavlova, to her post when Tooth reappeared, looking lost and distressed without her usual attendants. She wrung her hands in that worrisome way that meant she could barely restrain the urge to pluck her feathers from anxiety. North peered over the neck of his team and gently asked her, "How are things now, Toothy?"

"Oh…" Toothiana shrugged. "I supposed it could be so much worse. We managed to secure the teeth, mostly. Only a quarter of the vaults were breached. All the rest are safe and sound."

North nodded in understanding as much as in sympathy. He'd seen what Nightmares did to teeth and knew how hard she must be trying not to think of it all. "And…your little ones?"

A dry sobbed racked Tooth from head to toe. She clenched her eyes shut and her hands against her chest, pushing her frustration and sorrow deep inside where it could be controlled.

"Three dead," she said, her voice miniscule with the strain of hiding grief. "The last one, just now…she was so hurt and in so much pain that I just couldn't…"

"Oh, Tooth." North broke from his reindeer and gathered Toothiana in his arms. Safely hidden, she pressed her face into his coat and sobbed, trusting that he wouldn't let her fall.

Deep in North's heart, beneath the folds of mystery and fearlessness and care, an old hatred sparked, catching the flames of righteous vengeance. Tooth's fairies were so much more than magical extensions that assisted her in her work. They were her children, her family. To discard their lives so easily…! Pitch had stooped to a new and dreadful low.

After a moment, Tooth began to fly again. She delicately brushed the last tears from her eyes and smiled a sad, proud smile. "Still. You should have seen them down there, all of them. They put up such a fight." Her violet eyes darkened, flickering with the same flame as North's heart. "Those awful Nightmares rounded most of them up alive. Pitch has them locked away somewhere, the beast. I can't hear them, but I know they're alive."

"How many, exactly?" It seemed cold-hearted to ask, but North needed to know as much about the causalities as possible, to plan the appropriate counter-measures.

"Around eighty percent of the team. All the rest are working triple-time to make up the difference. It's hard, but they'll make it through." She rose into the air, observing her battle-scarred domain. "North. If Pitch strikes again…"

"Do not fear," said North, bringing her back down. He swung into the seat of the sleigh and tugged the reins from their hitch, judging the tension for departure. "If Pitch returns, we will be ready. Soon as we get back to the Pole, I send yetis here in force for extra security. He will not take us by surprise twice."

"North, no." Tooth buzzed anxiously around him, tucked up tight with concern. "You can't spare that much help, you've still got Christmas preparations."

"Preparations, bah." North waved off her concerns. "If you must manage with short hands, we all must do our part to assist. The important thing is that we keep your operation running as fully and securely as can be managed to protect the belief of children in you. Then we find Pitch, put a stop to his evil plans, and return your stolen little ones so that everything will be back to normal. Yes?"

Tooth, apparently realizing that she would never change his mind, beamed and chirped a delighted, "Yes, of course!" before settling on the bench beside him. Knowing her to be of tropic decent and ill-suited to the cold, North lay a blanket of fur across her lap before clasping her shoulder.

"I am also certain that, once he has heard of what has happened, Bunny will make a similar offer," he continued lightly, wrapping the reins around his hand. "After all, he has no use for stone eggs until springtime now. And who knows? Perhaps our new friend Jack Frost will have ideas for protection as well."

Toothiana giggled, nuzzling into the fur. "Maybe he will."

North was pleased to see a glimmer of something like wonder – excitement, perhaps, or anticipation – glimmering in her eye. Even in her grief and distress, his old friend stood strong.

With a call to the team and a snap of the reins, they took to the air over Punjam Hy Loo. Once they were well clear of the cavern and the delicate ecosystem far below, a portal to the North split open in the sky with a toss of North's magical globe. In mere moments, they reappeared high over the workshop at the Pole and steered straight for a landing with unbridled hope that the comrades, at least, would offer better news.

* * *

"Are you completely off your rocker?!"

_Crash!_

Bunny's voice was the first thing Toothiana heard when she emerged from the hanger bay on North's coattails. The angry shout was followed closely by a heavy crash that reverberated down the stairs. Seconds later a troupe of distressed elves rushed past, clutching the remains of a shattered plate and a dozen cookies as though fearing for their very lives.

In the thunder of getting up the stairs, they couldn't hear the fairy's response beyond some opening squeaks. Whatever she said, it frustrated Bunnymund right into pounding the floor with his hind leg.

"We gave him a bloody chance! 'Not that bad' my fluffy frost-bitten tail. Little blighter tried to have us all killed."

"What is going on up here?" North demanded, as they reached the top of the stairs. He strode into the globe room in three long steps, Tooth fluttering right behind. "Bunny! What is all this shouting?"

Bunny whirled on them, drumming the floorboards incessantly with one angry leg. Babytooth – that was what she'd started calling herself, yes? Yes – perked up at the sight of her mother, her tiny body ruffled from the fight. Behind them both, Sandy wore an expression of exhaustion but was otherwise oblivious to the whole ordeal, signing wildly to a yeti in the request of a very particular something.

"There you are," Bunny groused, bounding over to the face off with North. As he straightened to his full height, all the fur of his shoulders and ruff stood on end, puffing out with anger only barely contained. "I told you, mate, I told you this whole mess was a bloody awful idea, but did you listen to me? No, never listen to the rabbit, he's just being paranoid. Better to go runnin' in half-cocked and hope for the best. And just look where that's got us!"

"Where what has got us?" North huffed, pushing Bunnymund aside to clear his path into the room. He peered around the globe room, frowning when he didn't catch a glimpse of the one they'd expected to see. "What has happened? Where is Jack Frost?"

Bunnymund barked a laugh, humorless and sharp. "'Where is Jack Frost?' I'll tell you where he's at, mate. He's with Pitch Black. Because he's _working for him_."

Babytooth shrieked in fury and flew across the room, buzzing nose-to-nose with the angry rabbit. She sputtered and chattered so fast that the others couldn't hope to keep up, desperate to defend the good boy she'd met and known and cared for.

Growling in annoyance, Bunny brushed her off with a wave of his paw, sending her tumbling Toothiana's way on a bubble of air.

"Belt up, Sheila. Whatever you just said doesn't change the fact that your little iceman crush attacked us without so much as an ow-yar-goin. He wanted us all dead, hell, he tried to crush you. Like a bug."

Babytooth gave a shuddering gasp and burst into tears. She dove into her mother's hands with a mournful wail. It wasn't fair, she sobbed. Her Jack Frost was a good boy who'd never do evil things like the Black man but she couldn't explain the ice or the storm or the awful hail or the nightmares that came at the very end and oh Mama it just wasn't fair.

Toothiana bristled protectively, cupping the fairy close to her chest. "Bunny, enough," she snapped. "Don't you yell at her. We lost three of her sisters today and the last thing she needs is more to cry over."

Bunnymund's jaw dropped. His ears fell back against his head. He sank onto his haunches, eyes wide with dawning horror. "You mean…Pitch. He actually managed to…strewth. I'm so sorry, Toothy. I didn't mean anything by it."

He ducked his head in shame. Tooth's flare of anger died. She closed her eyes to ward off the renewed pain.

"It's all right," she said softly. "You couldn't have known."

An uneasy silence fell between them, heavy as new snow on a dark winter's eve. North sighed, resting a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Clearly," he said, "there is much we must discuss. Come, both of you, sit by the fire. Get comfy. We must talk." He lifted his eyes to their fourth member and frowned. "Sandy? What are you doing?"

The Sandman was accepting a silver serving bowl almost as large as he was from the yeti he'd spoken to before. Without so much as a glance to the other Guardians, he set the bowl on the floor by the fire and dug around in his clothes. He finally located a large glass bottle full of seawater. He emptied the contents of this into the bowl, sprinkling its surface with a generous helping of dream-sand.

Their curiosity piqued, the other Guardians closed in, Bunny crouching while North took a knee and Tooth perched on the Russian's shoulder. Apparently finding the perfect balance between saltwater and dream, the Sandman put his tools aside and gently moved the bowl in a circle, stirring the water without touching it. The water settled into ripples, which caught the light of the fire and twisted it into shapes and shadows.

Pictures formed on the water's surface, broken and shuddering like an unfocused TV. A bridge of black and gray flickered across the pool. Bunnymund's whiskers perked in interest.

"That's it," he breathed. "That's the place the Sheila took us, where we met him. Pitch's lair."

"Sandy," said Tooth, her wings buzzing soft as she could manage. "How are you doing this?"

Without looking up from his task, Sandman raised a hand, forming as series of quick images that ended with a golden salamander. The exchange lasted for barely a minute, but his companions got the gist: he'd left a tiny dream, too small to be noticed, in their enemy's home to act as a look-out. A spy.

Noth stroked his beard, visually impressed by their eldest member's cunning. "The pictures. Why are they so broken?"

This time, Sandy formed only a single image, that of a house. After a moment it shifted off its foundation and fell to one side, undamaged. Bunnymund nodded in understanding and, thankfully, soon explained it to the others. "Pitch's moving the place around so we can't find it again the way we did before. I do the same thing with the Warren every century or so. Ain't all that hard, just a bit of a hassle is all."

Sandy nodded and gave the bowl another gentle shake. The pictures began to come in clearer as the hidden realm settled, clearing the channel between master and dream. Soon, the feed was uninterrupted and perfectly clear, giving them a window directly into the heart of their enemy's lair.

The firs thing they saw was the cages, a good dozen of them, filled to the brim with shattering specks of green and blue. "My fairies!" Tooth gasped, cupping her hands over her face as her heart lurched. "Oh that absolute beast!"

Sandman made a circular motion with his hand and the picture panned in as the tiny dream scurried closer for a better look. The fairies in their cages were unharmed – frustrated and fearful in their imprisonment, but unharmed. They chattered worriedly to themselves, which echoed from the bowl in a tiny chorus. Was it over? Could they move? Get off my wing, I'm sitting here. What if it starts again?

Suddenly, the image jerked away, the dream-geko scurrying into a pipe in the wall to hide. When its picture returned, peering through the end of a rusted pipe, the reason became clear: Jack Frost had appeared.

He perched like the fairies did upon the top of his staff, which stood straight on an outcrop of rock though there was nothing to hold it upright. His hood was up and his eyes swollen and tired, but he still wore the slightest of smiles. He reached for the nearest cage, missed – was his vision going? – and grasped it on the second try, tugging himself close enough to peer through the slight gaps in the metal doors.

Tooth held her breath, but rather than do anything wicked, Jack Frost merely offered her girls a tired little laugh. "Hey," he whispered. "It's okay. You're okay, it's all over. Everything's settled down. No more moving for a while, I promise."

He folded his arms on the edge of the cage and rest his chin atop them. Sandy urged his dream a bit closer until they could see that Jack was now almost parallel to the ground, as though dangling between his staff and a cage was the most comfortable thing in the world.

"It's awful, I know. All that shifting and changing makes me sick every time. But you'll see. Things aren't all bad around here. Once you get used to it, it can actually be kind of nice."

Babytooth perched on the edge of the bowl and stared at his image with such concern and longing that it broke Toothiana's heart. In their distant cage, the captive fairies relaxed one by one, a few flitting closer to their visitor in curiosity.

But before any could satisfy that wonder, a deliberate _clang_ from somewhere far out of the dream-geko's sight drew Jack's attention away. A second later the boy of ice and snow was gone, dropping from the ledge with only enough pause to catch his staff on the way down.

North sucked in a breath through his teeth and hunched closer, trying and failing to get a better view. "What is happening?" he asked. "Where did he go? Sandy, can you see?"

Sandman nodded, his hands flying with silent commands. The dream dashed into the pipe and down the length of the wall, following its twists and bends until the drain reopened closer to the floor. It peered into the twisted gloom and mismatched light of the shadowed Realm's heart, just in time to watch Pitch Black arrive at the scene.

* * *

A massive pair of wrought-iron gates – which had not been there before the Shift – slammed shut behind Pitch as he swept into the main chamber of his Realm. He bristled with power, fuming over his loss at the Tooth Palace. True, he'd technically fled from that battle a victor – scores of fairies imprisoned and thousands of teeth swiped from their vaults – but still. Still! It could have been so much more. It should have been more.

Jack, to his credit, had the good sense to appear without being summoned. He dropped silently from the wall and lowered his hood, balanced on the ball of one foot as though he were about to blow away on the wind with his leg as the only thing keeping him grounded.

Pitch eyed the boy without a word, his lips pressed into a thin line. He folded his arms tight in the small of his back and began to pace, crossing the room with long strides as he turned the events of the day over and over in his mind. Jack stood by, watching in silence. Good. At least he remembered that much. Children should not speak until they were spoken to, how could the world have forgotten? They'd gone soft, they'd all gone soft, he'd gone soft. That was the root of the matter.

Well, no more.

Pitch rounded on Jack, drawing his back straight until he towered over the boy by a full head and shoulders. He waited until the boy hesitantly raised his eyes to meet gold before hissing through his teeth, "What were the Guardians doing here?"

Jack swallowed hard, wringing the staff in his hands. "I, I don't know."

"How did they get in here?"

"Well, remember the second time you went, after you came back for the sword? When you left, you forgot to…" Jack trailed off, catching Pitch's glare as the elder narrowed his eyes. He back-tracked as quickly as he could. "The spells weren't re-enabled. None of them usual defenses were."

Pitch hissed through his teeth. That still didn't answer his question. He turned away with a sweep of his robe, muttering half-to-himself, "But how? How did they even find this place?"

"I…I-I…"

Pitch stopped, tasting Jack's fear. It held the bitter tang of a liar caught in his false web. He paused, schooling his face and voice into careful neutrality.

"…You?" he prompted.

Jack's gaze fell to the floor.

"You let them in."

"No!" Jack snapped up his head and pulled his staff across his chest. "No, I didn't, I swear."

Pitch spun on him and closed the distance, startling the boy off his balance. He stumbled back two, three steps before catching himself, panic overtaking his features. "You brought them here," Pitch snarled. "You sold me out."

"No. Please, you have to believe me, I would never –"

"Don't you _dare_ lie to me!"

A crack rang through the chamber as Pitch's hand met Jack's cheek in a vicious backhand. Jack reeled from the blow, clutching his cheek in shock. It'd been over half a century since the last time he'd been struck.

From overhead, the captive tooth fairies cried out in protest. Pitch turned his gaze on them, his anger reverberating through the chamber until the cages rattled on their chains. "Shut your beaks or I'll stuff a pillow with you!"

The chattering died with a wave of fear. The Nightmare King turned back to his ward, who rubbed a pale jawline that was already starting to turn slightly blue.

Pitch folded one hand over the other, reining in the instinct to deliver a matching bruise on the opposite cheek and be sure the lesson sank in. Keeping his voice tightly controlled, he hissed, "How did they find you?"

Jack shrugged, clutching his staff, though now it seemed less like a shield and more like a teddy bear. "It was an accident. There was a tooth fairy, she followed me back the last time. I didn't know that she would…"

"I told you never to speak to anyone up there. Those were the rules."

"I didn't talk to her. I didn't even know she was there."

Fear continued to radiate from the boy, now tinged with desperation. He was trying to hide something, keeping the fear buried. It would be no use. "You spoke to someone. Who?"

Jack bit his lip and wrung the staff in his hands.

"Answer me."

"I…I didn't mean to," Jack muttered finally. "I swear, I didn't, but I couldn't help it. I was so tired. I just closed my eyes for a little bit to rest, but then I fell asleep and…he found me."

"The Sandman."

Pitch hissed in disgust, his hands clutching tight until the gray knuckles turned white from the strain. He began to pace again, his mind spinning. How many of his plans could be disrupted in one night? He'd been so careful, spreading the Nightmares from dreamer to dreamer since the start of the New Year, slow enough that the blasted little man wouldn't notice the change but steady, oh so steady in sucking the precious hopes and wonder straight out of the children's hearts. The Guardians should only now be noticing the change, their horror dawning with the realization that the scales would soon tip and fear would swallow all.

But no. One meeting, weeks ago, had tipped his hand. The Sandman found Jack. Jack, whose precious dreams proved such fertile breeding ground, who'd been instrumental in the creation of his strongest breeds, in whom the seed of night terror was planted so deep that every speck of sand that touched his mind turned dark and pale. Sandman could not, would not have come away from that encounter without knowing a hint of Pitch's plan.

Pitch paused, his thoughts coming back around to the present time. Some things had been explained, but not everything. There was the matter of the trespass and…

"…And the fairy?" he asked, his tone soft and dangerous. "Sandman doesn't work with the Tooth Fairies at night. Why did she follow you here? I want the truth, Jack."

"I…" Jack trailed off again, fear radiating from him like heat from an oven. Pitch waited in silence, suspicions rising, gradually stoking the fear as he allowed the boy to stew in his own mind. It didn't take long before the explanation finally came. "I took a tooth."

"You _what?_"

In an instant, Pitch's fury boiled over. He snatched Jack by his shirt collar and slammed him into the nearest wall, bare toes dangling a foot from the ground. The staff clattered to the floor, well beyond the reach of its master.

"Two rules. Broken. In one night." Pitch growled, pulling the boy away from the wall only to slam him again into the stone, knocking the air from his lungs. "I told you, I _told you_ never to take anything that would be missed!"

"I-I'm sorry!" Jack clawed at the hand that held him, more out of fear than from any hope that he might actually get away. "I'm sorry, I didn't think –"

"No, you didn't. You stupid, reckless, idiotic boy!"

Pitch punctuated each insult with another slam against the wall, his grasp so tight that the collarbone he held threatened to snap. He flung Jack across the chamber and into the fallen cage so hard a dent was left in the twisted metal. Jack fell to the floor, gasping for air. As he struggled to pull himself up, Pitch reappeared, keeping him trapped in a tight circle though the boy knew better than to try and escape.

"Decades upon decades of fishing the teeth of non-believers from garbage cans and out of lawns and snow banks and piles of leaves. Centuries of building my forces, breeding Nightmares, discarding plan after plan until every detail was perfect. All of that, all of my hard work, ruined. Because of you. You did this, Jack. You broke the rules. It's all because of you."

* * *

Back at the Pole, the Guardians watched the scene unfold in stunned silence. Babytooth had long since fled her perch for the safety of her mother's wings, sobbing mournfully into the place between her shoulder blades. Toothiana's hands were clasped over her mouth, holding the horror inside. Bunnymund's ears pressed against his neck, unable to pull his gaze away.

Finally, as a second cruel slap found the same bruise as the first, North forced his head to turn. "That is enough," he whispered. "Turn it off, Sandy. Please."

Nodding, the Sandman ran his hand through the water, breaking the spell's connection until nothing remained. He cared the bowl to the nearest table, careful not to spell lest they need the connection again, but from the look on his face he was not eager to reopen the line anytime soon.

Bunnymund remained on the floor, his whiskers twitching. He drummed the floor with his hind leg and muttered, "I don't get it."

"What's there to get?" Tooth sniffed, fluttering down into one of the chairs and wiping an empathetic tear from her eye. "He's dreadful. A monster."

"Not Pitch. The kid." Bunny frowned, so busy trying to get his thoughts in order that he didn't bother to straighten into a human stance. "You two never saw him fight. He summoned a dinky-di blizzard indoors, with no warning, no build-up, no clouds, just wind and ice and snow from nothing. The bloke's a genuine, literal force of nature. So why's he lettin' Pitch knock him around like that?"

No one replied, though they all knew the answer. They'd all seen it before, in children that they could not save. Even as Guardians, they had no authority to interfere with the real lives of children, no matter how horrid and un-childlike. All they could do was offer support in their own ways and pray that hope and wonder and memories and dreams would keep the fragile spirits bright into better days.

North sank into his favorite chair, feeling older and more tired than he had in centuries. A pair of elves approached him timidly with a tray, offering hot chocolate and eggnog to all who would partake.

North's eyes drifted from one Guardian to the next, taking in each of his companions in turn. "We are all agreed, then?"

They nodded, even Bunny as he finally rose from the floor and settled alongside Tooth.

"Good." North accepted a mug from the elves and raised a glass to his fellow Guardians. "Drink, my friends. There is much to discuss. We have a rescue mission to plan."

* * *

Minutes seemed to stretch like hours as Pitch's anger warped the time-space of the Realm. Jack stayed down after the second time he was knocked to the floor, keeping his head low and his tongue still. This was what he got for keeping secrets and for breaking the rules.

Finally, Pitch's anger seemed to subside. He stopped circling like a hungry hound and faded back into the shadows, his footsteps dying to soft brushes against the floor. When next he spoke, his voice was weak.

"Why, Jack?" he whispered with a mournful little sob. "What did I do to deserve this?"

Jack looked up. Pitch seemed smaller than before, frailer, ancient and tired from the centuries he'd spent alone. His shoulders trembled. His eyes spoke of confusion, betrayal, and pain.

"Haven't I been good to you? Given you a home, tended your wounds, cared for you when you were sick? Didn't I provide everything you could have wanted, offered training, companionship, comfort – my love? And all I ask in return is to follow a few simple rules, rules I've only put in place for your protection. Because if anything ever happened to you, I don't know what I'd –"

His voice broke and took Jack's heart with it. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than for the earth to open up and swallow him whole, so he'd never mess up and never hurt anyone again.

"But you can't even do that, can you? Not even that one little thing." Pitch stilled as his voice grew cold, the shadows falling over and around him. "You know what you are, Jack? You're selfish. Selfish and hateful and cruel."

Twin tears streaked, unbidden, down Jack's face. They turned to perfect hailstones as they fell and clinked against the stone floor.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. The words bubbled out again and again, laced with desperation and shame. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Please don't throw me out. Please don't leave me. I need you. I don't want to be alone.

And then Pitch was there, gathering Jack into his arms. He soothed with gentle whispers of nonsense sounds and stroked the ice-white hair. "There there now. It's all right. I'm here now. I'll put everything straight."

Jack clung to him, smothering the sobs. Crying didn't fix anything. He had to be strong, strong enough to help or at least not to be any more of a burden. As though Pitch could read his mind, the Nightmare King tightened his hold, rocking like a father with his child.

"It's not over yet," he whispered, though his eyes were not on the boy in his arms. "You'll see. There are still plans to be saved, steps to be taken, battles to be won. There's still time to recover. Plenty of time. And next time, Jack…next time, we'll do it together."

Next time. Together. Yes. Exactly as it should be.

* * *

**A/N: **

_Tishe, tishe _– "Hush, hush," in Russian. I figure that North probably goes through a team of deer every fifty years or so (which is an impressive time for a deer), so he's since retired Donner and company for a younger, healthier group. In keeping with some of his in-jokes from the movie, the two named here take their names from Russian composers, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alla Pavlova.

Also, if you didn't know: both male and female reindeer (and by extension caribou, who are undomesticated) have horns, but the majority of males lose theirs in the winter. So I figure North's team is a mix of males and females, hence the names and reference to does. This is the sort of thing you learn when you move to Alaska to pursue a degree in, quote, "Northern Studies."


	11. The Fortnight that Followed

**Chapter 10: The Fortnight that Followed**

It took three days for Jack Frost to recover from his exhaustion. The moment he was once again able to stand on his own, Pitch swept him from the Realm as though he suspected they were being watched. From what little the Guardians saw after that, they guess that Pitch wasn't letting the boy – the source of his new-found powers – out of his sight.

Five days after the Battles of the Tooth Palace and the Dark Realm, Sandy's tiny dream-spy was discovered and devoured by a Nightmare. For the next week, the Guardians saw neither hide nor hair of Pitch Black and his ward. Still, the evidence of their travels was everywhere. Nightmare sand spread through the cities like a virus, passed from one child to the next, their every good dream consumed and corrupted. Tooth's fairies, those few who remained and worked almost to exhaustion to keep up with the tide of teeth, reported skirmishes with the beasts as they returned from their rounds. Seemingly overnight, the battle had turned to a war.

Key points throughout the world became subtle battlegrounds of nighttime wills, with Sandman bolstering their remaining believers as North and Bunny provided cover for Tooth and her girls. Their day-to-day existence, so long taken for granted, became a cycle of give and take. Every step they took, Pitch matched on another front.

It was a stalemate and a reminder. Pitch Black, for all his posturing and dramatics, was capable of unending patience. He'd waited in the darkness long before, first for a thousand years, then several hundred, and he'd been chipping at their core belief base for longer than they'd guessed. He would bide his time until the moment came to strike.

But that was fine.

Pitch was not the only one who knew how to wait. The Guardians, too, understood patience. They would counter him at every crossing, preserve the balance for as long as they could manage, watch, and wait.

This time, the Guardians would take the first move.

* * *

It was hard to remember sometimes that they were doing the right thing.

Jack perched at the end of a thin wooden bed, watching Pitch coax an advanced nightmare who'd sprouted fangs and claws deep into the child's mind. The boy, who was older – twelve or thirteen at the most – squirmed in his nest of quilts and sheets, peace crumbling from his expression like dust to the wind.

"Nyet," he croaked as the golden sand struggled against an onslaught of black. "Nyet. Nyet, nyet."

But there was no stopping it. With a silent keen of triumph, the Nightmare shredded the last figure of golden sand and swallowed its fragments whole. Then it clawed its way deep into the space of dreams, burying itself in the child's mind and planting a seed of utter fear deep inside his heart.

Jack swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. Some protective instinct deep inside wanted to reach out and comfort the boy, ridiculous as it seemed. Jack couldn't touch him, he couldn't touch anyone, and even if he could it wouldn't be right.

Pitch, who up until this moment had been absorbed with the task at hand, glanced up as though tasting Jack's misgivings. He stroked the tiny, indistinct remnants of the nightmare and whispered, "It's for his own good, you know."

Jack nodded. He knew.

"Children today are so spoiled, with all the wonder and dreams at their disposal," Pitch continued lightly, his fingers leading the black grains down the length of the boy's body, tucking it into every niche and crevice of the dreams. "It's all softness and light, not a hint of true fear to be found. That's no way to live, no way to grow. You saw yourself how it nearly turned out for this one."

Jack had. Pitch pointed it out to him this morning, while they flitted through the shadowed streets of Moscow, keeping an eye on the changing tides of their battle with the Guardians. He'd shown Jack how the boy's lack of fear drove him to break rules put in place for his own safety. That would only lead to trouble down the line, as Jack knew first-hand.

"He will know better now," Pitch said, giving the nightmare a final swirl of power before stepping from the beside. "The fear will keep him in line. In time, it will make him strong. Don't you agree?"

Jack nodded, relief settling over his previous concerns. "Yeah," he said, watching fondly as the child slept on. "You're right. Of course you are."

Pitch chuckled, ruffling the ice-white hair. "That's a good boy. Come along now."

His fingers brushed the cuffs on Jack's wrists, activating the spell that let him follow through the dark tunnels at his mentor's side. Then the Boogieman slunk beneath the child's bed and melted into the darkness that was his home. Jack lingered only long enough to coat the sleeping child's window with frost – a parting gift for the morning to reassure that good had been done – before slipping under the bedframe as easily as a fallen toy and letting the shadows spirit him away.

* * *

They reappeared in Burgess mere moments before night bled into day. The little town had proven, in the last two weeks, to be a surprise battleground in the struggle of Guardians versus fear. Compared to the more prominent metropolises of Paris, Rome, or even nearby New York, Burgess seemed small and insignificant, but it was a lynchpin when it came to holding the American mid-west. Plant enough fear in this single tiny town and it would spread across half the continent before the Guardians knew what them.

In preparation for this decisive blow, Pitch had set up a temporary war room in the attic of an old, boarded-up Victorian home in a decrepit corner of the town. Rumor among the children was that the place was haunted by the spirit of a murder or a suicide or perhaps the remnant of a child drowned well before his time. Teenagers often dared each other to break in and spend the night, only for their fear to draw creatures in the darkness that cast their minds back to childhood, with just enough belief to send them running in fear.

In truth, the house was empty and had been for a century. But fear hung on every cobweb and covered the floor, a delicious mixture that flavored the air like a succulent stew. The relative safety and shadows of the boarded-up windows only sweetened the pot.

A pack of Nightmares waited for them in the attic room. They swarmed their master to report on the night's work, the delicious feast of fear that filled them to the brim. Would there be more teeth soon, Master, more sweet memories to turn? They'd had such a scrumptious night, terror and power like they hadn't tasted in centuries, but oh, it would be so much better if there were only one more memory to add…

One mare, the headless mount of a Dullahan, broke from the circle and closed on Jack with curiousity. In an instant, the two cold-breeds who followed them everywhere reared in protest, kicking their headless companion away from their prize. They flanked Jack on either side, braying and snorting. The fears of Frost were their claim, he belonged to them, and none but their master was allowed near.

Jack, of course, understood none of this. He chuckled and stroked the mane of a silvery mare. The Nightmare sniffed at his protective bonds and snorted in disgust to find the order of no harm still in place.

Pitch watched the display with growing fondness until his patience for such foolery ran out. He clicked his tongue and swept the Nightmares into the darkest half of the attic, where they could prepare for the night to come. There would be battle soon, of that the Nightmare King was certain. With only five weeks until Christmas, North would be desperate to have this struggle decided before his precious holiday could be disturbed. Pitch welcomed the coming fray. In the fortnight since their first encounter, his Nightmares had doubled in number and power, their meals of stolen memories making them more than match for forced remained on the side of the Moon. When the battle came, whichever side struck the first blow, he was certain that they would be ready.

And yet…

As the sun rose and the light changed from orange to yellow to the clear white of day, Pitch found himself distracted from his plan of war. His eyes wandered to Jack, who had claimed the only unbroken, un-boarded window as his perch.

It was distracting, having the boy with him in the field. They'd been so long under wraps, hidden away in the safety of their Realm that Pitch had almost forgotten what it was like to travel with a true companion, not the Nightmares that flanked his every step. Certainly, it was enjoyable, but they were at war. Joy was not a factor here. He couldn't afford to lose focus on his plans. Keeping Jack close was necessary for upmost security, yes, but was the preoccupation worth the lowered risk?

It'd been an hour since their arrival. Normally, by this point, the window would have been coated in forest of hoarfrost, but for once Jack seemed less occupied with his chosen canvass than with the world beyond it. He'd sat up straight at the sound of laughter from outside and now had a hand pressed against the glass, staring eagerly out at the street.

Pitch lurked ever closer, careful not to allow the sunlight to fall on his bare skin. It didn't burn him, as it once had, but it didn't sit well either. And it brought back memories from another age, another lifetime. He could easily do without those.

Through the broken glass, he caught a glimpse of children waiting on the street corner for their bus to school. There were five of them – no, six, a particularly tall girl standing apart from the rest embroiled in a book about unicorns. There was a pair of twins and a clever-looking girl and nerdy blonde boy with thick glasses and, right in the middle, a wide-eye young boy with a gap in his teeth who smiled and laughed at everything his friends said.

In the back of his mind, Pitch recalled that Burgess had always been a favorite haunt of Jack's during his nighttime adventures under the cover of darkness and the new moon. Practically every time he returned from a night abroad it would be bursting with stories about the children of the town, how they'd grown and changed and how much fun he hoped they'd have with the days off he brought them. He knew them by name and by face and by the patterns of angles they left in his snow.

Without a word, Pitch slid his eyes from the children back to Jack. The boy of frost and snow hadn't even noticed his mentor's presence, too enamored was he with the children of Burgess. His glacial blue eyes were wide with undisguised longing that stirred something deep in Pitch's heart.

The Nightmare King cleared his throat, gently, so as not to startle. "That boy in the center there," he said, nodding to knot of children. "Would that be your Jamie Bennett, then?"

Jack jerked and his jaw dropped. He was, apparently, so surprised that Pitch remembered the boy's name that he nearly fell off the windowsill, but the shock only lasted for a moment before a broad smile took its place.

"Yes! Yeah, yes it is, that's him. I think he must have hit a growth-spurt over the summer or something, 'cause he's gotten really tall, even if he is still kind of short compared to the rest of them." As the school bus rumbled towards the corner Jack pressed his hand against the glass, eager to point out the other children from his visits before they disappeared. "And that one there, with the glasses? That's Monty. He's smart, but not nearly as smart as Pippa – she's the one with the hat, and she always gets good grades in pretty much everything. And that girl off to one side, they call her Cupcake, but that's just an old joke. Her real name is –"

He continued on long after the children had climbed onto their bus and disappeared, rattling off each of their names and their life stories as seen through stolen windowsill glances on moonless nights. A smile wormed its way onto Pitch's lips, both fond and amused. No matter how often he saw it over the centuries, seeing his ward so animated always brought contentment. That was the thing about Jack Frost, he was so bright and so eager that even the Nightmare King couldn't stay mad at him for long.

The keeping of a teenager was truly a difficult balance to maintain. One must be strict enough to guide them into line, but if the leash became too short and too tight they would only rebel against it and try to break free. The trick, Pitch had found over the years, was to allow for small freedoms here and there, treats that brought just enough joy to let them know that they were loved, which would only strengthen the control of proper discipline.

And so it was that Pitch made his decision without even thinking a decision needed to be made. When Jack pressed against the glass for a final glimpse of the school bus as it rumbled away, Pitch lay his hand on the teen's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"Jack," he said. "Why don't you go out and play?"

This time, Jack did slip off the sill. He and his staff clattered to the floor like a bundle of kindling. From there he stared up at Pitch, wide-eyed.

"What? You can't mean…not now!"

Pitch chuckled, pulling the boy to his feet. "And why not?"

Jack stared at him like he'd just lost his mind. "Because, because it's daytime. I've never been out when it's light out."

"Does that mean you don't want to?"

Jack's jaw clamped shut and fear gripped his heart. No, of course he wanted to go. It was the one thing he'd wanted most for over a century, to be free to play with the children in the light of day and see first-hand how much they truly appreciated his abilities. Pitch waited with amusement while Jack squirmed, his desires and his concerns at war within him.

"I," he said hesitantly. "I do want to go. It would be…I can't even think of what. But are you sure, Pitch? It's against the rules."

Ah yes. The rules. For a century, following those rules had kept Jack hidden from both the prying eyes of the Man in the Moon and the rumors of spirit world. But there was no point in hiding anymore, not now that Guardians knew of Jack's existence.

Pitch placed an arm around the boy's shoulder, pulling him into the shadows where the Nightmare King would be more comfortable. "Now now, Jack, I made those rules. I can make new ones. It's only just this once after all."

Just this once, just a bit of fun, to fan that spark in the boy's heart that kept his spirit bright and his power strong. There were precautions that could be taken, after all. Like himself, the Guardians were active primarily at night; if there was a battle to be held, that's when it would come. And even if they were watching somehow, if they sprung a trap, well, there were precautions to take for that as well…

Pitch whistled through his teeth, summoning the cold-breed Nightmares to his side. "Take these two with you," he said, drawing them close to Jack. "They'll keep you safe. So long as you stay within the borders of Burgess and return here by the time the sun has set, I believe everything will work out fine."

Jack's excitement was so potent he was practically shaking in his seat. The window rattled as the wind answered his unconscious call. His desire to shoot off into the bright sky was palpable. And yet, the linger uncertainty – that tiny seed of fear – kept him rooted to the spot.

"Are you really…I mean, is this really a good idea? I mean…Pitch, are you sure?"

Perfect. Just the right amount of fear.

"Of course I'm sure. Go on now."

Jack didn't wait around to question him again. He yanked open the window and leapt into the wind with a howl of laughter, flying high over the rooftops and power lines with his cold-breed companions at his heels. Pitch watched him until he'd disappeared, satisfied that the distraction had, for now, been taken care of.

Then he returned to his remaining Nightmares and turned his thoughts once more to the battle that was to come.

* * *

**A/N: **Short chapter, but it flowed better to cut it off here. Also, Pitch continues to be a complicated and confusing bugger. He seriously gets away from me like every other chapter, to the point that I'm not sure his reasoning for letting Jack have a little fun here is entirely clear. If it's not, then my bad – I swear it made sense in my head. OTL

By the by, for those of you playing at home, the current time in-story is around November 15th. Being in text form, I can get away with spreading the plot over a lot more time than the movie. Guardian's big rescue plan to come, so stay tuned.


	12. Snowballs, Fun-Times, & Forest of Fear

**Chapter Eleven: Snowballs, Fun-Times, and the Forest of Fear**

Best. Day. Ever.

Jack laughed like he hadn't for a decade or more, his body alight with unmitigated, unadulterated, pure and golden _joy_. The wind howled in chorus as it barreled him, full-throttle, through the streets of Burgess, their chaperones of frozen sand barely able to keep time even with their pounding hooves.

In mere moments, they caught up with the school bus as it rumbled across the bridge towards the center of town. Jack dropped from the wind onto the long yellow roof, which instantly crackled with ice. Spiraling tendrils of water and frost clambered down metal and windows like grasping vines. It coated the windshield, causing the bus-driver to hit the breaks in surprise; but there was no ice on the road, and so the shock of the sudden half-stop was felt only inside.

Jack heard Pippa and Monty shriek, then she dissolved into laughter while he sputtered and made excuses for screaming like a girl. Little hands pressed against the glass, drawing pictures and marveling at the sudden cold. Jack dropped to his knees and hung upside-down to peer into the windows, where he found Jamie staring back at him, grinning wide to show off the half-filled gap grown up in place of his tooth. Jamie traced the edge of a frost-fern with delicate fingers, then began to draw spirals out from it like branches from a tree.

Finally, the driver got his windshield wipers to work and hit the gas once more, the bus rumbling back on track to its inevitable trek to school. It was too late in the morning for Jack to stop that, so let the ice serve as his promise of things to come. Jack tumbled off the bus and into the waiting wind, waving to the children though he knew he could not be seen. They were awake, and they were amazing, and Cupcake had the prettiest little brown eyes, and Jack couldn't wait to see their faces once they found what he had in store.

A frozen mare caught up with him, stomping its foot against the empty air. Its demands that he slow down fell on deaf ears. Jack spun his staff in hand and pointed it straight up into the gray morning sky, shouting, "Let's go, Wind. Up! High as you can get me."

The wind obeyed, sweeping him straight off the ground. The icy Nightmare tossed its head in annoyance and galloped through the slipstream to catch him, ducking under Jack's body and tossing him onto its back. Jack grasped the silver-tarnished strands of the creature's mane with one hand and whooped like a war cry, spinning the staff over his head. He needed clouds and moisture and cold fronts, as much as he could gather. Already the elements came at his call, turning the light cover into thick clouds, growing heavy with snow.

The storm he conjured would baffle meteorologists for years to come. By mid-morning, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, settling in the perfect sweet-spot for snow. By noon, thick flakes began to fall, chilling the earth and filling out thick drifts of heavy white that would be perfect for snowballs and snowmen and sledding and more.

And the children of Burgess loved every second.

Jack reappeared on the scene just as school was letting out. Children poured from the building, chasing snowflakes to catch on their tongue and laughing as they chased each other through the snow. Jack picked out Jamie in the crowd, then the rest of his friends, and to his absolute delight they didn't bother with the bus (which was stalled out in the snow anyway), just took to the sidewalk on foot all laughter and fun-times and joy.

His two Nightmare chaperones whinnied in protest when Jack broke from them to chase the children, but they made no move to follow close, staying in the safety of the shadowed trees. Even with the sun hidden behind thick clouds, it was too bright for their liking. In the back of his mind, Jack knew he should be more cautious. The sun would make him sick too, if he wasn't. But that thought lingered for only a second before it was chased out by the realization that Cupcake wasn't with the others. She was walking alone and that would not do, it wouldn't do at all. This was the Best Day Ever and he was going to make sure that every single person knew.

Moving on instinct, Jack swept a handful of snow off the nearest fence and packed it into a tight ball. He breathed into his hand and something – something he had no name for, something he'd felt only a handful of time in all his years – flowed through him into the snow and cold air, forming a perfect blue sphere. He wound up for the pitch, thought better of it at the last moment, and changed direction, nailing Jamie – who'd been walking a little ahead of the others – right in the back of his head.

Jamie yelped and stumbled on the ice, his hand snapping back as the snow sank down his shirt and coat. He laughed and spun around, his eyes bright and his grin wide. "Okay. Who threw that?"

Of course, none of his friends had, but before they could protest the accusation Jack lobbed another snowball, and another, knocking off Pippa's hat and throwing Monty's glasses askew. Shaking with laughter, Monty returned-fire and hit Claude up the side of the head, who immediately retaliated but caught his brother in the crossfire. The fight escalated further which each passing second, expanding as they ran for cover behind recycling bins and street signs.

At just the right moment, before Cupcake could disappear around the corner, Jack summoned the wind with a sweep of his staff. It caught Pippa's next volley in mid-throw and landed it squarely in the center of Cupcake's back.

She froze, the unicorn book slipping from her hands. The fight lurched to a stop. Pippa squeaked in horror. "Crud! I hit Cupcake."

"You hit Cupcake?" echoed Caleb, his voice weak.

"She hit Cupcake," Monty agreed, pointing to Pippa to pass off the blame.

Cupcake turned, growling low, grinding her teeth and clenching her hands into tight fists. Even from his position, unseen in the center of their battle, Jack didn't miss how the two frozen Nightmares slunk ever closer, moving from the shade of the trees to the dark space between buildings and eagerly scenting the air. They tasted fear, children's fear. The kids feared Cupcake?

No. No, that was _not_ how this was supposed to go down. Cupcake was big, yeah, and she liked to play rough and she had a temper, but she was also sweet and bubbly and everything fun about being a little girl. Her favorite animals were unicorns, for crying out loud! They couldn't be afraid of her. That wouldn't help anybody.

Before everything could fall apart, Jack scooped up another fistful of snow and poured as much of that bright, happy _something_ into it as he could muster. He leapt onto the top of his staff for a clear shot, took aim, and fired. The snowball struck Cupcake's face in mid-step, bursting into sparkles that danced in the pale sunlight. They caught in her eyes and tickled her nose, drawing first a laugh, then a smile.

Next thing anyone knew, she had a whole armful of snow and was chasing down Jamie and Pippa with exaggerated roars. The others screamed, not in fear but laughter, scattering to escape her wrath. By the time the excitement finally died down, no one had been spared. Everything that wasn't waterproof had been soaked through. Their faces flushed with smiles and the cold, and laughter was the word of the day.

"Hey," said Claude, shaking snow out of his puffy hair. "You know what we should do? We should go ice skating!"

"Yeah, down at the Lake!" added Caleb, in perfect time with his twin. He shoved Claude's shoulder to congratulate him on the good idea and broke into a run, the two brothers leading the way to the woods tucked away on the edge of town. "C'mon guys, keep up!"

Pippa shouted for them to wait and broke into a jog alongside Jamie, with Monty scrambling to keep up. Jack hopped off his staff and was about to call the wind to meet them there when Jamie suddenly stopped, his shoes sliding on snow-slick sidewalk. He doubled-back without warning and jogged straight through Jack as though the winter spirit wasn't even there.

Jack's breath caught in his throat. Oh. He had not missed that feeling at all, that rush of emptiness like a dry breeze sweeping through his chest. He shuddered and gripped his staff with both hands, backing away from the sidewalk. Of course they couldn't see him. They didn't know his name, only his work. You couldn't believe in something you'd never heard of before.

Jamie, of course, didn't notice. He bent down, picked up Cupcake's abandoned unicorn book, and offered it to her along with his hand. "C'mon Cupcake. Let's go to the Lake."

Cupcake took the book back and socked him in the shoulder, only hard enough to sting, not bruise. Jamie laughed good-naturedly and rubbed the spot where he'd been struck, hurrying to catch up when the others called for them not to be so slow.

Seeing the sweet smile that crawled across Cupcake's face as she caught up with her classmates – no, her _friends_ – Jack felt cool comfort fill in the emptiness of being walked through. His joy returned like a spark, as light and vibrant as snowflakes in the sun.

No doubt about it. Best day ever. Bar none.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when they retreated to the Lake.

The Lake had an official name, but nobody really cared. Mostly, it was just "The Lake" or "The Hole" or occasionally "Overland Spring," for reasons that no one remembered. It was tucked off in the woods that dominated the edge of town, in a hidden rocky nook that couldn't be seen from any of the surrounding homes, though pretty much everyone knew it was there. It was only when they got that that they realized no one owned skates, and the Pippa gave the ice an experimental poke with a stick and declared it way too thin to be safe, so everyone gave up on the idea.

Mind, the thin ice didn't stop Jack from settling in the center of it all. Pitch had theorized centuries ago that Jack didn't have a set weight and could essentially decide whether he wanted the ice to hold him or not. That suited him just fine, because the center of the lake gave him a perfect view of the kids as they went about their games: Monty and girls building a massive snowman while the boys took turns on Jamie's sled. Jamie had skittered off to collect the thing on the trek here, returning with both it and his two-year-old sister Sophie in tow. The adorable little girl wore fairy wings and massive boots and kept running between the two groups of children, chanting 'Snow snow snow!' and 'sled sled sled!' in a volley of eager chirps.

Unseen in the center of the late, Jack chuckled and rested his weight on his staff. The day's work, from the storm to the snowballs, was starting to wear on him. Familiar aches settled into his bones. His toes and fingers were going numb. He didn't think he'd be able to keep up with the kids for much longer. Still, it was the good kind of exhaustion, the kind that came from a long day of doing what he'd been born to do and left him feeling light and happy.

His attention drifted from the kids to the ice at his feet, which was covered in a spiral pattern of fern-frost that glittered even in the dim light of the cloudy day. Frost. His namesake. It'd been the first thing he'd seen, upon waking all those centuries ago. The beautiful spiraling patterns erupted at his touch, coating the lake, the rocks, and the trees…

That's right. It'd been right here, hadn't it? He woke in the nighttime, alone. Then Pitch had arrived. Jack looked to the trees, where the Nightmares were watching. They were less overgrown now, more tamed by the encroaching town, but they were no less dark on day like today. That's where he'd first seen Pitch, half-hiding in the tree-line, a living shadow given humanoid form. It had been cold then too, and dark, and up above…

Clouds. Only clouds, swirling through the canvass of their endless gray sky.

Jack frowned up at them. What had he been expecting to see? The sun? He knew better, he'd hidden it himself. And yet, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that there had been something there, something he'd looked for once before.

His thoughts were broken up by the chattering of a ringtone from Monty's pocket. His mother called to report, on behalf of the neighborhood, that the sun would soon be going down and it was therefore time for the kids to return home to get washed up for dinner. Without much of a fight, the group agreed, all except for Sophie, who was crouched on the edge of the Lake and poking at the frost.

"Sophie?" Jamie jogged over to collect his sister, pulling the sled behind him on its string. "C'mon Soph. It's time to go home."

Jack stepped off the lake and drifted into the trees, coming around behind Jamie in time to see Sophie smile up at him through the curtains of her hair and point at the frost. "Pretty."

Jamie chuckled, hoisting her up around the waist. "Yeah, it sure is. But it's time to go home now, Soph. Mom's waiting. Hop to it."

"Hop hop hop!"

As though responding to Jack's fondness, the wind ruffled the sibling's hair and clothes as Jamie deposited Sophie onto the sled and started tugging her towards home. The rest of the gang was a little further ahead on the trail, but it wouldn't take long to catch up with them. Jack stroked one of the silver Nightmares' manes and sighed. "Guess it's time for us to get home too, huh? Been a good run. We better get back."

He expected the pair to lead him off, herding him around the way they always did when Pitch put them on guard duty. Instead, the first cold mare pawed the ground and broke from his side, trotting silently after the Bennett children. Its fellow was only a few steps behind.

"Hey," said Jack, bounding between trees to catch up with them. "What are you doing? Hey, stop that!"

One of the Nightmares pounded a tree with its front hooves, rattling it so that dying leaves poured down on Jamie and Sophie just as they passed under. Jamie was only startled and ducked back to avoid the fall, but Sophie squealed in fear and clutched her brother's pants legs. Her wide green eyes stared directly at the Nightmare. Could she see them? Surely not in their full form, but at two years old if she believed something was there…

The second Nightmare stalked closer, only for Jack to snag it around the neck with his crook and pull it back. "I said stop it. Cut it out, they haven't done anything."

The snagged Nightmare snorted, cold sand bursting from its nostrils. This time, Jamie shuddered, the frozen air hitting him hard from behind. He reached do to grasp Sophie's hand. "C'mon Soph," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Let's catch up with the others."

He broke into a run, pulling the sled with his sister behind him. They weren't far from the suburban houses, maybe a block at most. But when he reached a fork in the path a frozen Nightmare flew across the path, rustling trees in its wake and blocking the children's way. Jamie scrambled to keep his footing on the moist path and changed direction, taking the path that led away from the houses and deeper into the trees.

Horror struck Jack right in the gut. The Nightmares were doing this on purpose, separating Jamie and Sophie from the others so they'd get lost. The sun set fast in the distant west, the woods growing darker and darker as it receded. The Nightmare he'd snagged shook itself out of his crook and capered closer to the frightened children, whinnying with excitement as it scented their fear.

Jack leapt after them, bounding off the tree-trunks and swinging from branches to get ahead. Here, in the tight-packed trees, he couldn't rely on the Wind, only his own power. He flung himself over the frozen Nightmares and landed squarely between them and the Bennetts, his staff lowered protectively across the path.

"Leave them alone," he said firmly, glaring at the monsters of sand and ice. "They don't deserve this, they're good kids."

The Nightmares tossed their heads and snarled, advancing ever closer. Jack Frost was not their master, he had no control over their actions, and the fear of the children tasted so sweet. It swelled in the boy's heart as he glanced to the trees and realized that he knew not where he wandered. He called for his friends, but they were too far to hear. It filled the trembling body of the little girl as she sensed the Nightmares' presence; just enough in tune at her young age that she could hear their hoof beats in the snow. She reached for her brother's hand and whimpered, trying to hide behind her hair. Their own imaginations transformed the dark forest into a place of terror, growing ever stronger as the Nightmares closed in, savoring the unbridled waves.

Jack's heart clenched in his chest. He'd never seen the Nightmares act like this before. What would they do to two children who weren't asleep?

He couldn't bear to find out, not now, not with these children. Without thinking, he caught the Nightmares under the neck with his staff, baring their way.

"Jamie," he said over his shoulder, though he knew that he could not be heard. "Run. Take Sophie and go, now."

Jamie turned on the spot, unable to figure out which way he should go. Further down the path would take him away from home, but back was not an option – he didn't know why, but from the way Sophie clung to him he knew it wouldn't work. He scooped up his baby sister with one arm, balanced her on his hip, and hesitated, at a loss for what to do.

The Nightmares snarled, shoving forward against Jack's staff. Jack braced himself in the dirt, held them back with both hands, and shouted, "Jamie_. _Go. Now!"

The wind howled to answer his call, barreling through the trees like a beast on the rampage. It flung Jamie's sled under the boy's feet, knocking him backwards. Jamie landed on hard wood with Sophie in his lap, yelping as the wind carried them forward over the slick, snow-soaked path. In the same moment, the Nightmares burst through Jack's protective hold and Jack leapt for the sled. He alighted on its rear runners and sprayed a new layer of ice along the path, urging them faster and faster down the slopes and turns.

Jamie screamed, holding tight onto Sophie with one arm while the other hand gripped the wood to keep them on the sled. At first, Sophie couldn't even squeak, but soon enough she was laughing and clapping her hands. "Wheeeee! More fast, more fast!"

Jack risked a glance over his shoulder. The Nightmares were right on their heels, cold ribbons of darkness coiling in their path. He swallowed, swiping his staff at the ground to take them off the path and into the trees. "You heard her, Wind. Fast as you can manage."

The Wind howled against his back, warning that it couldn't do much here, where the trees provided cover. Jack made up for what it couldn't do by taking the turns as high as they could manage, keeping the speed constant as they dodged trees and leapt over roots. They careened through the woods with only the ice to guide them and only Jack's quick guidance with his staff keeping them from slamming into a wayward tree. The nearly silent pounding of Nightmare hooves echoed through the darkness behind.

Finally, they reached the end of the tree-line, pale orange street lamps cutting through the forest's gloom. The sled burst onto an empty lot, ramped off an abandoned snow-fort, and immediately dropped down an unexpected hill. The North Wind plucked Jack off the back of the sled, freeing him to ease the children down from their arc and lay down a new path of ice beneath their treads.

For a moment, now home was in view and the danger of an eminent crash was gone, Jamie's yelling turned to laughter that matched his sister's. The Nightmares whinnied in frustration as the fear they craved evaporated.

Then they flew past the edge of the grass, over the sidewalk, into the street, and directly into the path of an oncoming car.

The car's driver immediately hit his breaks and blared his horn, as though that would to any good to an out-of-control sled. Jack dropped from the Wind, landed between the sled and the car, and swiped his staff through the half-melted slush that lingered on the pavement from that day's storm. A two-foot barrier of ice leapt in the staff's wake, freezing solid several inches thick. The car's skidding tires struck the ice, crashed through the top foot, and stuck there, like the world's most destructive speed bump.

Jack reeled back from the force of the crash and the head-spinning rush of power needed to create it. The Wind swept from behind to keep him on his feet. He twisted in its hold, turning after the kids just in time to see their sled hit the curb on the opposite side of the road and leap, flinging them both into a nearby yard. They crashed into a snow bank, flinging white all over the previously-clean steps of a front porch.

_Oh no_. Jack thought, his throat closing tight. He leapt over the fallen sled and crouched at the children's side, hardly daring to breath. "Jamie? Sophie?"

Jamie coughed and took in a long gasp of air. As they were flung from the sled he'd twisted to cover Sophie from the crash and, as a result, had their air knocked right out of his lungs. But otherwise, he seemed unharmed, groaning as he rolled Sophie off his chest so he could sit up.

"Ah, geez," he groaned as he sat up. "That smarts…you okay, Soph?"

"Pretty," said Sophie. Her wings were askew and her hair was messier than ever, but she didn't seem to notice any of that. Instead she stared wide-eyed at apparently nothing, or perhaps it was at the snow that drifted around them from the landing, flickering in the pale light of dusk.

Jack sighed in relief, sitting back on his heels. Thank goodness. They were safe, and they were out of the woods, and neither of them seems scared anymore. Now, if he could just get them back home.

Above their heads, the porch light flickered on. The door opened a moment later and, to Jack's surprise, the Bennetts' mother appeared. Then he took a step back and realized that they'd crash-landed right in their own front yard. He'd been so focused on the kids that he hadn't even noticed he was leading them home.

"What is going on out – oh!" Ms. Bennett froze on the porch and gasped at the sight of the crashed car. The driver was unhurt and, having discovered (to his great relief) that he'd not run down two kids on their sled, was investigating the damage. With the ice already broken, it looked to be little more than a fender-bender. Even getting the front tires back down wouldn't take too much effort.

With a mother's eye, Ms. Bennett immediately turned to her children and hurried down the porch steps, sweeping her daughter into her arms. "What happened? Sophie, Jamie, are you all right?"

"Mama!" Sophie cheered, smiling from ear to ear. "An-gee, Mama!"

Ms. Bennett gave her daughter a worried once-over, turning her all the way around before she was satisfied enough to drag her son out of the snow. "Jamie, answer me. Are you all right? What happened?"

"I'm –" Jamie tried and failed to squirm from his mother's grasp. She did not relent, checking his every inch for wounds. "I'm fine, Mom, I swear, I'm fine. And, an-an-and I don't know what happened! We were in the woods –"

"I told you not to go out there alone."

"We didn't! We were with my friends, but something happened and we got turned around. And! And there was something out there, like Bigfoot or something! And –"

"An-gee!" Sophie giggled again, wiggling in her mother's arms. She flailed her arms, little hands pawing at the open air. Jack leaned back to avoid her fingers. He didn't feel like getting passed through for a second time that day. "An-gee, an-gee!"

Ms. Bennett, satisfied that neither of her precious children had been harmed, relaxed with a sigh. She swept them both from the yard into the house before going to check on the driver of the car, praying under her breath that he wouldn't blame her for whatever damage had been done. Jack stood by and watched with baited breath, only relaxing once he was sure that Jamie and Sophie were safe in their home and would not emerge again.

He turned to leave, mindful of the promise he'd made to Pitch about being back by sunset. But before he could even step from the Bennetts' lawn, one of the frosted Nightmares blocked his way. It bucked like an enraged bronco and kicked him square in the chest, flinging him into the fence between the Bennetts' property and the one next door. Jake cried out in surprise and pain, feeling a rib crack under the force of the blow.

As he hit the grass, the other Nightmare reared before him, about to bring its front hooves down on his head. Jack rolled out of the way but his staff wasn't so lucky, clipping a hoof on the way past. The blow knocked a sliver-sized chunk out of the antique wood, which Jack felt as a searing pain right in his left shoulder, like he'd been stabbed.

He scrambled to his feet, backing away from the Nightmares with his staff lifted to keep them at bay. He yanked back the sleeves of his hoodie to make sure the cuffs were clearly exposed, but it didn't make him feel any safer, not with the way they glared.

"What is with you guys today?" he demanded in frustration, retreating onto the open sidewalk. One of the Nightmares doubled around to flank him from behind, forcing Jack to turn so his staff was aimed ahead while the other mare was held at bay by his hand. "I told you, those kids didn't do anything. They didn't deserve to get hounded like that! You're only supposed to scare the kids when it helps them, remember?"

The Nightmare held at staff-distance snorted in disgust. Its fellow restlessly pawed the ground with its hoof. Jack got the feeling that, if they could talk, they'd be raging at him for keeping them from a meal of fear, or perhaps for being such an upstart that he thought he could order them around when that alone was Pitch's domain.

Jack braced himself for another assault from one or the other, but it never came. Instead, in the same moment, the frosted Nightmares jerked their head towards the fading sun as though listening to a distant sound. He followed their line of sight to the golden horizon and stared for a long moment before he realized that it couldn't be the sun, not as thick as he'd made the clouds. The color was too rich for that, and too warm. He knew that color well.

Sandman.

And Pitch, too. Jack could see the flowing black shapes of the Nightmares darting in and out through the ribbons of golden sand, circling from their master like tendrils from a cyclone. No doubt the Tooth Fairy and the other Guardians were deep in combat as well.

"He's fighting the Guardians. We have to…" Jack took a step and nearly fainted, lurching forward off his balance. One of the Nightmares caught him before he could hit the ground, using its teeth to drag him against its shoulders. The other nudged at his legs, trying to toss them over its partner's flank.

Jack took a shuddering breath, which made the cracked rib ache in his chest. He got a grip on the Nightmare's mane and pulled himself onto the creature's back. "You're right," he sighed. "I can't. Take me home."

It was not an order. Jack couldn't give the Nightmares orders. But they had no trouble following the previous instructions of their King.

* * *

They took to galloping over the rooftops and phone lines out of concern that a change in the wind would alert Sandman to their flight. Jack wouldn't put it past the guy to notice, with all the sand in the air. He pressed his body against the Nightmare's neck, his staff parallel to the flow of its spine so its shape wouldn't draw unnecessary attention.

They were in sight of the old Victorian when a dark blur – not one of theirs, too solid and too fast – shot through their path. Jack barely managed to pull his staff out of the way before it was clipped. The second cold Nightmare whinnied angrily and leapt after the blur, chasing it into one of the shadowed yards. A crash followed, then a burst of silver sand. The Nightmare was gone.

His mount reared from their planned direction and bounded to the nearest rooftop, then two over before dropping into the dark and hidden space between buildings. On the way down, it kicked out a security lamp, plunging them into safe, sweet darkness.

The Nightmare, once it settled all hooves on the ground, rolled its shoulders. Jack got the hint, sliding off its side and to his feet. He stepped behind it, keeping his back to the wall. His staff shook, grasped in tired, unsteady hands.

For a moment, they waited, with Jack straining his eyes against the harsh light of a gas station at the end of the alley. Then the blur came again, darting past the mouth of their hiding spot. The cold Nightmare darted after it, its every breath calling for vengeance for its fallen comrade. When it rounded the corner, the sound of a brief struggle soon followed. It ended with a final, whinnying shriek. Then nothing.

Jack took a step, pressing his back against the brick wall of the dead-end. He held his breath, half-hoping that whatever had found them would think it'd taken out the whole of the threat. Being unseen was the first step in every self-defense lesson he'd ever had.

A long, silent moment passed with only his own heartbeat to keep him company. Then an all-too-familiar silhouette leaned around the corner, its tower ears flickering in the orange light.

"Hello mate," said the Easter Bunny. "It's been a while."

Jack jerked his staff, firing a blast of ice that the rabbit barely dodged. The corner of the building sparkled with frost as it struck brick instead, frozen solid. The Easter Bunny leapt towards him, bounding off the high wall and knocking over a trash can with his powerful hind legs. Jack dodged, somersaulting along the pavement, and didn't see the boomerang coming until it was too late.

_Crack_! Wood hit wood, knocking the staff from Jack's hands. Jack cursed under his breath and leapt after it, bounding over the fallen trashcan. The moment he landed, as his toes brushed the ground, it opened to swallow him whole.

Jack's staff slipped from his grasping fingers as he tumbled into the tunnel and a waiting pair of massive, hair hands. Yeti, it was an actual yeti, one of Santa's goons, and it had him by the arms. Jack swung his legs in the most furious kicks he could muster, bellowing frustration. "Let me go! Get your hands off me! _Pitch!_"

Overhead, the hole that had dumped him here closed up, sealing them underground. Jack yelled and kicked and struggled, but without his staff he had only sticks for arms and the raw power of a frozen squirrel. The hulking yet easily outmatched him on every level. He shouted for Pitch again, but even the his own echoes off the tunnel walls were smothered by the yeti's grunts and nonsense words as it called into the earthy gloom.

A second yeti appeared a moment later, bearing a massive sack. Before Jack could protest, the yeti shoved him head-first into the bag, yanking it up both to catch him inside and keep him from bashing his head on the floor. Jack clawed against the interior lining, a few weak ice crystals forming in the cloth as he tried to force himself up-right.

From outside, he heard the rustle of moving dirt as the ground opened and closed again. Then the heavily-accented voice of the Easter Bunny asked, "Right then. You got him, fellas?"

Jack threw himself against the side of the sack, trying to throw it out of the yeti's grasp, or take out its knee, or something. He hit only cloth and air, the bag lurching under him as it swung.

"…Right," said the Easter Bunny. "That's what this for. Open the neck a bit."

Jack's head snapped up as grip around the sack's neck loosened. To his eternal frustration, the rabbit was close enough to peer inside, but not so close that Jack could hope to take out an eye or a handful of whiskers out of spite. The Easter Bunny held a tightly-closed paw against the opening of the sack and lingered just long enough to catch Jack's gaze.

"Sorry kid. You'll thank us for this someday."

He opened the fist, dumping a paw-full of golden sand into the sack. Jack pressed back against the cloth but, trapped as he was, there was nowhere to escape. He struggled valiantly against the magic for a full thirty seconds before his eyes closed. Then, he knew only black.

* * *

**A/N: **Well. This chapter grew wildly out of control. Probably a good thing I cut that last one off early. Otherwise it could have gotten really crazy.

Fair warning: After this point, I've pretty much exhausted the (very rough) chapter-by-chapter plotting I'd done up to now. These leaves me with some vague headings towards the ending I've be working for, but a lot of possibilities on the road to get there, and I'm not entirely sure what's going to stick and what won't. So from here on out it may take a bit longer between updates while I'm working out the speed-bumps, but I promise it'll all be worth it in the end.


	13. A War of Dreams

Gosh-darnit, another chapter full of people talking to things that can't actually talk back. Or being a thing that can't actually talk back. Dammit Sandy and MiM. I blame you.

**Chapter Twelve: A War of Dreams**

Without his staff, without his ice, without the raw power of the wind and the fury of a winter storm, Jack Frost seemed frighteningly small.

Bunnymund's throat tightened as the boy-spirit slumped in Santa's sack, stick-thin limbs crumpling like kindling by a fire. Dream-sand clung to his lashes, giving them a golden glow, but true to Sandman's word that was the only hint of magic. The sleep was dreamless; dark, but safe from Nightmares. He'd be out for hours.

Feeling old and strange in his own fur, Bunny steps from the sack and brushes the last of the extra-potent dust from his paw. "Good work, fellas. Load 'im up."

Phil, the head of North's security team, grunted in assent and carefully secured the mouth of the sack before settling it in his arms. Bunny handed Frost's staff off to the second yeti, aware of how fragile it felt without the kid's power. "Carefully with this. Make sure it gets locked up somewhere safe."

He thumped the ground with his hind leg. Earth rumbled in the distance as the tunnels shifted and reformed. "This'll take you straight back to the Pole. No branches or anything. Just keep going straight. And also…" He eyed the bag, running his ears back with a restless paw. He sighed. "Give the kid a once-over when you get back, okay? He was moving weird up there. Think there might be some…some damage."

Made him sick to think about it. They didn't know yet how much abuse the kid could take, but that beating they'd seen before was fierce enough that a human child would've been hospitalized. To think that injuries lingered even now, or worse, that there'd been another thrashing in the two weeks since…it hurt. Even if the brat was a pain in the tail.

Phil nodded in understanding and cradled the sack ever more gently as he and his assistant lumbered through the earth. Bunnymund lingered a moment, listening to be sure they were off in the right direction – which they were – before tapping his foot again to summon an off-shoot back to the heart of Burgess, where the battle raged on. Time to get back in action. With any luck, Pitch would never notice he'd been gone.

* * *

High in the gray clouds, a new storm swelled in the shadow of the old, small but fierce. Black sand swirled as a single living mass, its edges tinged with ice pilfered from the winter winds. Coiling flares broke off into rampaging Nightmares bolstered and changed by memories devoured, some so twisted that they only resembled equines in passing, like an afterthought. At the heart of the storm lurked their master, Pitch Black, laughing as the mechanical sleigh and spinning blur of green feathers tried to fight their way through to strike him down.

Sandman observed it all from atop a swirling golden cloud hidden on the edge of twilight. For all Toothiana's heritage as a Sister of Flight and North's magnificent flying sleigh, this place among the clouds was his domain alone. They were not yet high enough to leave the city of Burgess behind, and it was vital that Pitch Black not be allowed to rise any further until Bunnymund returned, lest the Easter Bunny's absence be noted and their plan uncovered before Jack Frost had been secured.

The Sandman breathed deeply, summoning to his aid a warm southern wind that filled his body like a balloon. With great sweeps of his arms he called forth his dream-sand, pouring all of his determination and courage and desire to protect children into the glistening golden grains. It wrapped around him in a remnant memory of the wishing star he'd once piloted through space and time. Carrying Sandman at its heart, it arched through the clouds and dove for the center of Pitch's storm.

Sandy hoped, as the golden orb bore down, that the Nightmare King remembered all the Wishing Stars he'd attacked during his rampage of the Golden Age, remembered that even though he'd tried to destroy sweet dreams once before he'd failed, and he would fail again. Nightmares leapt from the storm to defense their master, but their hooves could not penetrate the golden shell in time. Mere meters from Pitch's perch, it burst, scattering the storm and leaving only a patch of darkness on which the Boogeyman could stand. Sandy leapt from it on a cloud of his own, twin whips cracking the wind.

"Woah-ho-ho!" Pitch half-laughed, dodging the first whip and parrying the second with his rapier. He crouched on his wave of black sand and formed a massive scythe around the sword, which he wielded two-handed to meet the golden whips blow-for-blow. "Sandy, there you are. It's been much too long since we've had a chance to chat."

Sandman scowled, striking with both whips in an overhead crack that would've split Pitch in two if he hadn't dodged. It was difficult for the Sandman to hold onto anger. His mind birthed the sweetest nights and brightest dreams and thus had no room for that darkness in more than flickering sparks. To keep his heart for battle, he pictured all the wrongs that must be righted in turn. All the dreams turned to Nightmares, all the children who lay awake in fear. Jack Frost, who'd never had a dream.

From the other side, Toothiana broke through the clouds and charged the Nightmare King with her singing blades. Sandy took the opportunity for a blow of his own as Pitch spun the scythe on her, only to find himself on the receiving end of an ice-blast he barely managed to block with a wave of sand.

While the pair was distracted, Pitch dropped from the sky, landed on a Nightmare's back and spiraled towards the city streets to lead them on a chase. Tooth shot after him. Further on, North's sleigh also dove for the ground. Sandy moved to follow, dropping from his cloud, but his path was blocked by a fearsome Nightmare the size of a draft horse, its face twisted with three muzzles and five eyes that burned like fire.

Sandy dodged its stomping hooves, rolled on the warm wind, and wrapped both whips around the Nightmare's massive neck. He landed firmly on its back, riding it through the night as it kicked and bucked in vain. Sandy pressed a bare hand against the beast's wide shoulder and, in a language that had neither words nto voice, he willed: _You are not real. You are not true. You are nothing._

Beneath his palms, black sand turned to gold. The creature shrieked and tried to throw him off, but it was too late for it, much too late. Golden sand swallowed it whole and transformed the black beast into a gleaming manta ray like the ones that swam around Sandman's island home.

Sandy sat on the sea-creature's back and wiped his brow. Once upon a time, that spell had been so easy. He'd dispatched legions of Nightmare Men, clearing the way for good dreams and repurposing their sand for good. But this new breed, fed on twisted memories, was too powerful. As he paused to catch his breath, Sandy coaxed the stolen teeth from the dream's heart. They emerged white. He cupped them close and smiled. At least that theory was proven correct.

He tucked the precious memories away and steered the dream to downtown Burgess, where Tooth and North had Pitch pinned atop the flat roof of a corner store. The three combatants were a dance of steel, ice, and sand; but unseen to the Guardians, the Nightmares were closing in.

Sandman swept his mount into new whips, longer than the pair before, and dove at the encroaching equines. He caught two around the waist and slammed them into each other, where they shattered into sand, then dodged a charging third and leapt over a fourth to join the others on the roof. As North and Tooth pivoted from the fight to defend against Nightmares, Sandman again stared down his old nemesis, the Boogeyman, and his infuriating smile.

Sandy thought of broken dreams and murdered stars, of children stolen from their homes, of a boy whose trust and devotion was betrayed.

He cracked his whips towards the towering black figure. The gold strands snapped straight through him, scattering black sand with a disembodied laugh.

Sandy snapped the whips back, his head darting about in search of the lost Nightmare King. Ahead of him, Tooth dispatched a Nightmare with a swirling kick, spun towards him on a current of air, and gasped. "Sandy! Watch out!"

The Sandman spun around, just in time to see Pitch Black leveling a thorn of darkness as though it were an arrow. Before he could react, it was released. In the same moment a boomerang flew from the next building over and knocked the shot wild.

Sandy spun out of the arrow's way, but fast enough. The thorn scraped at his back as it shot by. It burned colder than ice, tearing into him like a beast. If he could, Sandy might have cried out at the sudden surge of pain.

He stumbled as the arrow burst against the rooftop and Tooth flew to assist Bunnymund with the Boogeyman. No one seemed to see that he'd been hit, and for that, Sandman counted blessings. He pressed a hand over the aching wound and drew it back to find black sand clinging to his fingers. It nipped at him, bitter in its chill, the fear it bore trying to burrow its way into his center.

Sandman took another deep breath, this one through his teeth, and thought of good things to keep the fear at bay. He thought of a warm island deep in the southern ocean, thought of laughing children sharing dreams, thought of his friends, his fellow Guardians, the new family he'd been given here on earth. And as he thought of these things he gathered dream-sand in his hands and smoothed it over black until the wound could no longer be seen.

Knowing that he could not risk anger now, Sandy retreated to North's sleigh, landing gently in the back as the toymaker again took up his reins. North didn't seem to notice the extra belt of sand, his focus narrowed on Pitch, who had taken to the air once more. Sandy waved to North with both hands, catching his attention in the reflection of a sword before flickering through the signs: an arrow pointing north, the swirling orb of a snow globe, a snowflake, and a spiral-patterned pole.

North sighed, his warrior instincts disappointed, but nodded. "Yes, yes, you are right. We must away." He snapped the reigns and whistled through his teeth as the team began to gallop, pulling them off the roof's edge. "Bunny! Tooth! _Poydem_!"

Bunnymund groaned visibly, but leapt to join Sandy in the sleigh just before it left the roof. Tooth paused in mid-attack and, though she also looked like she desired nothing more than to rend Pitch with her swords, flew back to join them. Behind her, Pitch rose on the back of his mount, his tarnished smile wide as a shark's. He thought he could close in for a killing blow.

Well. Not if Sandy had anything to do with it. He hopped onto the very back of North's sleigh, sweeping the last bits of his dream-sand for this battle into massive tendrils that trapped Pitch's hands and wrapped around the stick-thin waist. With a mighty jerk and an extra bit of muscle from Tooth and Bunny, he snapped the Nightmare King straight up into the air before slamming him firmly down among the trees at the outskirts of town.

Sandy wobbled and dropped back onto the wooden bench, worn down from the struggle and his hidden wound. He almost didn't hear North's bellows of a job well done, his focus locked on the trees to be sure that was where Pitch Black remained. Obviously, this battle would not be enough to deflect the Boogeyman for good. That had never been the intent. But now, they had what they needed. They had Jack Frost, safe and sound.

Sandy could only hope, as his wound twanged with pain, that they'd be able to convince the boy soon enough for it to do them any good.

* * *

Lost in the trees, Pitch lurched back to his feet just in time to watch North's sleigh vanish into the night air with a rush of white magic and a funnel of light. The Nightmare King laughed as the portal closed, his loyal forces emerging from the dark to lurk at his side.

"That's right," he said, with no one to hear but the Nightmares. "Run. Run away with your tails your legs. Soon enough there won't be anywhere for any of you to hide and when that day comes…!"

He grasped the air as though to crush the Guardians themselves in his palm, but even as he spoke the words a nagging doubt crept into the shadows of his mind. Why, he wondered. Why would they retreat? North called the shots in their fights and Pitch knew North's tactics better than any creature alive. It wasn't like the old Cossack to back off with his enemy knocked down, not when there was still fight left in both sides. So why…?

Pitch thought back to the battle, working through each moment, turn by turn. The Guardians arrived just before sunset, catching his Nightmares on their earliest rounds and calling him out. He'd responded in kind. The battle rose into the clouds, where Sandman waited, cutting him off from overhead. He always was the greatest risk, that Sandman and his dreams. Pitch had seen the opportunity, down on the rooftops, to rid himself of that risk once and for all, but the rabbit reappeared…

_Reappeared_.

There was a fifteen-minute window in which he's completely lost track of Bunnymund. In the heat of battle, as those who could fly rose into the air, the land-bound beast slipped unseen from the field to pursue other targets. Other, farther, more important targets, of which there could only be one.

For the first time in centuries, fear surged in the heart of the Nightmare King. Shadows leapt to his unspoken call, swallowing him whole. He reappeared in the abandoned Victorian, darkness swirling at his heels. "Jack?" he called to the house, and when the boy did not appear he shouted louder. "Jack!"

No answer. Neither a hint of frost nor a speck of sand was to be found.

Pitch plunged his hands into the darkness, whispering the tracking spells he'd bound to his ward a century before. The trail unfurled and he took off like a shot, following it through the wintery roads of Burgess. It wound throughout the city, but doubled-back so close he could see the house from where it suddenly veered away. He hunted it from shadow to shadow and reappeared in the gloom of a dead-end alley with a broken light.

There, on the corner, sparkling in a gas station's dim light: a pile of black sand, tinted with ice.

Pitch swept through the pile, scattering grains to the wind as he rounded the corner. Ice stained the brick without artistry, melting in air that was slightly too warm. A trashcan lay overturned and abandoned, dented on one side as though it had been struck. The space between buildings dead-ended into a wall.

"Jack," he called again, catching the fleeting hope that the boy might have hidden himself well enough to escape. "Jack, answer me. Are you here?"

No. There was no one. All that remained in this empty place was a single rose-pink flower, poking from the asphalt where no life should have grown.

The trail ended here.

Pitch sank to his knees, groping at the ground for any trace to follow further, but his magic cut off right there as though severed by a cleaver. Gone. The boy was gone. _His_ boy was gone, his Jack, stolen from right under his nose.

Grasping fingers found the flower that thrived in spite of its concrete prison. A spring blossom, well out of season. The Easter Bunny's calling card.

Snarling, the Nightmare King rent the flower from stalk to blossom, shredding it until only a pile of moist green and scattered petals remained. He roared, shattering every street lamp for three blocks and plunging the entire suburb into darkness. But even the frightened squeals of children suddenly robbed of their nightlights and cracked hallway doors could not appease his fury.

An army of Nightmares answered their master's call, scooping him from the ground in a torrent of black sand. At Pitch's whim, they tore through the cover of storm clouds and bore him up, up into the thin and frigid air beyond. The waxing moon waited there, barely a silver of its face exposed. And still, still, Pitch saw that infuriating, all-seeing, _comforting_ smile.

"Thief!" he roared. "Foul bandit! Larcener! How dare you steal from me?!"

If the Man in the Moon spoke back, his voice could not be heard. It never could. But Pitch, who knew the Tsar as well as any creature alive, knew in his shriveled heart what the response would be:

_Who are you to call thief? You, the pirate. The pilferer. Plunderer of planets. Filcher of children and parents alike. You, who horde that intended to be gift for the children of the world. _

Pitch snarled at his own thoughts, tearing at the air with his nails. The Nightmare sand swirled around him, taking its singular form once more. He willed the ice to appear and it did, twisting through the storm for a split second before falling to the earth as hail. Though he could not follow the trail, the two-way connection between them remained as solid as ever before.

"He's mine," said the Nightmare King, knowing that however soft he spoke he held, at this moment, the Moon's full attention. "Do you hear me, Lunar? I made him. I shaped his world. Me. You think you can wipe all that away? _Never_."

He turned his face from the waxing moon and whistled through his teeth, summoning a Nightmare from the swirling sands. He cupped her muzzle and whispered to her instructions to recall the others from every corner of the globe. The Nightmare whinnied in understanding and dove into the gray, galloping off into the darkness of a moonless night.

Pitch turned back to the moon, folding his hands tight together over the hilt of his sword. "Jack Frost belongs to me, old friend. And I will have him back. If I have to tear down everything you've built to do it? Fine." He smiled. "All the more fun for me."


	14. Readjusting

So…I got a tumblr specifically for the RotG fandom. Asks are open if you'd like to drop me line. The name of the blog is soleminisanction. Look me up, or you can also find the link on my profile page.

**Chapter Thirteen: Readjusting**

"Where is he?"

North burst into the workshop with the question on his lips, his fellow Guardians sweeping behind him in the wake he cleared through the floor of busy yetis and chattering elves. Phil appeared shortly, calling down to his boss in the guttural grunts of his Abominable native tongue and motioning that their desired guest waited on the observation deck that overlooked the globe.

Jack Frost lay stretched out on the fine velvet sofa furthest from the fire, his head and limbs carefully arranged with pillows to allow the most comfort in his deep and dreamless sleep. Tooth fluttered over to him immediately. She held her breath and hovered a few inches over him, as she had over hundreds of other sleeping children throughout the world.

"Oh," she breathed in quiet wonder. "He really is young, isn't he? Such a sweet face…" She stroked his check, careful to keep the touch soft so his rest would not be disturbed. Then, in a move that surprised no one, she hooked her fingers under his lips and pulled them open for a glimpse of his teeth. The resulting suppressed squeal sounded like polishing silver. "So pretty! They sparkle just like freshly fallen snow."

The boy-spirit groaned in his sleep and Tooth quickly retracted her hands. He shifted on the cushions, face twisted in discomfort. However, he did not yet wake.

The other Guardians drew close enough to observe, but remained at a distance so as not to crowd their sleeping guest if he were to open his eyes. North looked to Phil and his gray-furred assistant, who bore the white band of a medical operative on his upper arm. "He is injured?"

"Don't look at me, mate," said Bunny quickly, holding up his hands in self-defense when Sandy glanced his way. "I barely touched the kid. He was running funny even before I stepped in."

North took a clipboard from the medical yeti, skimming the information as he stroked his beard. He hummed to himself and tugged up the edge of the tattered gray sweatshirt to reveal a new layer of white bandages underneath. "Heavy bruising in the chest area. Two cracked ribs. No other visible injuries."

Bunnymund's ears quirked in the toymaker's direction as though turning towards danger. "From what we saw before?"

"_Nyet_. These wounds were fresh, barely an hour old. And the bruises bare a hoofmark shape."

"So he set the damn brumbies on 'im." Bunny snorted. "Like that's any better."

Sandman, who hovered near the boy's head checking on his dreamless sleep, shared a glance of concern with Toothiana. The Tooth Fairy bit her lip and stroked the snow-white hair, wishing desperately for healing magic that she did not possess.

North returned the clipboard to the medical yeti and approached the couch, brushing his fellow Guardians away while addressing Phil over his shoulder. "Preparations for the guest have been completed, da?"

Phil grunted his assent.

"_Khorosho_. It is more comfortable in there." North gently gathered the sleeping frost-spirit in his arms, careful not to jostle his wounds. He nodded to Sandy and Tooth – who, though they wished to, could not linger, as their nightly rounds called for their attention – and carried the boy up the winding stairs. Bunnymund fell into step behind him.

The North Pole contained many guest rooms, most of which were unused save for semi-annual New-Years'-dash-end-of-the-Christmas-season celebrations and the associated trauma of too much eggnog. But only one had been prepared tonight, chosen for this very purpose. Like North's personal workroom and a number of other chambers along the same hall, it was partially carved into the very rock of the icy mountain. A single carved support beam of fine red wood ran along the stone to support the walls; otherwise, the ceiling was made of rock. The room held a chill quite well, which made it the perfect place for the massive snowdrift that now dominated the bed in place of blankets or sheets.

North settled the boy on the mattress and tucked him in with the snow, patting it firmly around the wounded ribs in the hope that it would aid in the healing. Then he lingered for a moment at the bedside, watching Jack Frost sleep on.

Bunnymund, who'd remained in the doorway outside the room's inherent chill, cleared his throat. "Mate?"

"I do not like this, Bunny."

"I hear yeh, it's a weird way to catch the winks, but Sandy saw his room back in the dark place and said he liked it so –"

"No, not that." North sighed, ruffling the long whiskers of his moustache. "I mean this sealing up that we are doing, keeping him locked away in the pole. I do not like it, it is too similar to what Pitch has done. It will do no one any good."

The Easter Bunny considered this a moment, then shrugged. "What else can we do? If we don't pin him down he'll just fly away again, and we'll be right back where we started."

North shook his head, finally leaving the boy to his rest and exiting the room. "I know, I know. But it sits in the belly like bad fruitcake. No good at all."

He pulled the door closed, leaving the guest room well-lit but alone, undisturbed by either yetis or elves. The Guardians dispersed; Sandman and Tooth to their duties, North to his preparations for Christmas, and Bunny to assist with the security, as the Warren had been locked down until further notice. Jack Frost slept on and did not stir until the weak rays of the winter's brief arctic morning had faded and night swallowed the Pole once more.

* * *

Comfort and discomfort in conflict were the first two things that Jack became aware of when his consciousness returned. Comfort, because he lay in a soft bed guarded by the cool, familiar cover of fresh snow. Discomfort, because of a distant ache somewhere around his torso.

Without opening his eyes, Jack rolled onto his left side in an attempt to dispel the discomfort and catch a few more minutes of sleep. Big mistake. Pain lanced through him, bringing him to full awareness with a startled yelp. He fell onto his back again, gripping the place just below his ribcage with a groan. Sweet shadows, what had he done? Training usually didn't hurt this much, even when he messed up and took a direct hit…

He opened his eyes, intending to check the wound, but was instantly distracted by his surroundings. This was not his bed. This was not his room. This was not his Realm. Three of the four walls here were made of red wood carved and painted with intricate depictions of trees and snow and bears and reindeer. The four was hard rock, frozen by an ancient and long-seated chill. The sparse furniture – bed, wardrobe, mirror, linen trunk, and chair – matched the walls, as did the door. A warm, magical light came from the ceiling, illuminating everything without heat or source apparent.

Jack's breath caught. He stared, uncomprehending. Then it all came rushing back.

The alley, the rabbit, the tunnel, the sack. The dream-sand.

He'd been captured.

For a moment his mind went blank. Then he was on his feet, tossing the snow aside. Staff, where was his staff? Nowhere. It'd been taken from him. His fingers scrambled for something to hold onto in its absence and found the cuffs around his wrists, clinging to the ridged of carved runes. At least that protection remained. As long as he had those, Pitch would find him; but surely the Guardians would account for that. What if they'd spirited him off to somewhere Pitch could not go?

Jack's hand went for the door before he could think better of how stupid that was – surely, it must be locked – but to his surprise the knob turned easily. The Guardians forgot to lock the door?

He hesitated, uncertainty and joy warring within him. Too easy. He was a prisoner. This must be a trap. He steeled his nerves and pulled, ready to dodge the attack that never came.

Instead, the door opened easily to a cacophony of color the likes of which he'd never seen. A massive facility of wood and metal spread before him, adorned with colored lights and whirring gears. An entire army of massive, fur-covered beasts stomped the halls, carrying blocks of ice and bright-colored boxes and bags stuffed to the brim. They shouted at each other in a language Jack did not know, grunting and growling and occasionally roaring at one another across the massive room. And there were other things too, glittering objects covered in lights and bells that whirred through the air and hopped along the floor and screeched and sang and danced and yelled and –

Jack slammed the door and flung his back against it, heart racing a mile a minute. He clasped desperately at the protective bonds, his entire body trembling. His ears rang. His legs shook. His brain fired off bits of information that never quite stuck.

Yetis. Those creatures were yetis, like the ones who'd snatched him. Santa used yetis. Santa made toys. Toys. Those flying and hopping and singing things were toys.

He was in the North Pole.

He'd always wanted to see the North Pole. It called to him, all beautiful endless white and frigidity unparalleled by all but Antarctica, his second-or-third favorite place in the world. But he'd never been allowed, in fact, he'd been explicitly forbidden to ever wander even within the Arctic Circle, because the North Pole belonged to Nicholas St. North, to Santa Claus, and Santa Claus was a Guardian, an enemy…

He had to get out of here. He needed to get away, needed to get somewhere safe, but there were no other exits to this room and no way pass the yetis. The only place that seemed safe was the carved nook of earth above the room's single support beam, the only spot in the room that still held shadow under the magical light.

Without pausing, Jack leapt from floor to wardrobe to the wooden beam, diving into the shadows with his back to the stone so they couldn't sneak up on him. The wardrobe fell out from under him as he jumped and toppled forward, half-catching on the bed. The crash it made was deafening and shortly followed by more as glass objects within the wardrobe shattered, a beam inside the bed split, and drawers fell from the furniture to crash to the floor.

Jack huddled in his shadowed nook as shouts of confusion came from beyond the door. He heard wide feet thumping along wooden floorboards, right before the Easter Bunny burst into the room with boomerang in hand, his ears standing straight and his fur on end.

"What in blazes?" He scented the air, forest-green eyes darting from the bed to the fallen wardrobe and to every corner of the room before landing on Jack, who could practically see the gears turning in the rabbit's mind. The Easter Bunny took a few deep breaths before it all fell into place. He lowered his weapon and sighed. "Strewth, kid, don't scare us like that. It's tense enough 'round here as it is."

Jack scowled at being directly addressed and pulled his limbs into a ball, holding onto the cuff of his left wrist with his right hand. The Easter Bunny returned the frown before settling back on his haunches and forcing his body to relax down to the ears, which flopped forward though they continued to twitch at every sound. From what little Jack knew of animals, he guessed the rabbit might be trying to make himself look smaller. Less threatening.

"Easy there mate," he said, softer than before. "I know this whole mess is probably real confusing. But I promise, you're safe now. It's all going to be okay."

_Okay? _Of all the stupid things to say. Before he could think better of it, Jack laughed without humor, running a hand through his hair.

The rabbit's nose twitched. "Somethin' funny?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "I can't believe you actually tried to feed me that line." He slid to the edge of the support beam, letting his feet dangle to more easily peer down at the Guardian. "Let's recap the current situation here, shall we? I have been kidnapped by a man I've never met, his army of abominable fur-balls, a guy made entirely out of sand, a flock of sentient hummingbirds, and a six-foot talking kangaroo; all of whom –" He had to raise his voice to cover up the bunny's indignant sputtering. "– are the explicit arch-enemies of the only creature in this world who has ever cared about me."

He laughed again, the terrible absurdity of his own situation sinking all the way in. He shot the rabbit a derisive glare. "So tell me, 'mate,' exactly what part of all that is 'going to be okay'?"

The Easter Bunny wrinkled his nose. His chest and shoulders moved with a series of rapid breaths, barely contained as though he wanted nothing more than to lash out and rip Jack a new one, physically or verbally. He managed to show restraint, hissing through his teeth. "Kid…"

"I'm not your kid." Jack set his jaw and pulled the gray hood up over his head. "Whatever you're after, you're not getting it from me."

He retreated back against the stone, pressing into the shadows until the support beam blocked the rabbit from view. The Easter Bunny sighed, hovered nearby for a long moment as though contemplating his next action, then departed, pulling the door closed in his wake and leaving Jack once again alone.

* * *

Jack wasn't sure how long he spent up there, going over escape plans that never solidified into anything real, but it was quite some time before he was disturbed again. This time it came in the form of a well-known buzzing and chirping which was as welcome for its familiarity as it was disdained for the sour memories it brought up.

He jerked sharply to the left, away from the little green and blue fairy that hovered near his right ear. He pushed further to the end of the support beam, his back now to the curve that would have been an upper corner in a normal room, trying to put some space between them. Babytooth followed, flying right up into face and cooing in concern.

With no more beam to flee on, Jack swept the fairy into his cupped hand and batted her off. "What do you want?" he snapped as she tumbled head-over-tail-feathers. "Go away. Haven't you done enough?"

Babytooth righted herself after two tumbles, popping up like a rubber toy in the bath. She trilled with distress, pleading with those watery, mismatched eyes.

"No, I did not 'miss you.' You sold me out, you little rat."

The fairy keened and darted into the safe comfort of two delicate hands that Jack had not noticed before. The owner of these hands cupped the little close and cooed to her with words of comfort. "Oh, Jack, please don't be too mad at her. She's been so worried about you."

Perched on the support beam with him was a green lady whose shimmering blue and emerald feathers matched Babytooth's exactly, though they considerably more grand. She had amethyst-bright eyes and thin transparent wings that twitched as though they wanted nothing more than to take to the air again, but didn't have the room to move.

Jack jerked back in surprise, bashing his head on the stone. The green lady gasped and reached for him with worried hands. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to scare you. I only wanted…"

Jack cringed away from her touch. The green woman stopped and withdrew her hands, her wings lifting her momentarily from the wood to carry her back several feet, giving Jack half the support beam for personal space. He relaxed a bit, peaking out at her from beneath his hood. She folded her hands delicately over her knees and began again.

"I only wanted to meet you. I've heard so many wonderful things." Babytooth, no doubt the source of the stories, buzzed nervously around her mother before ducking behind her head and peeking out at Jack through her feathered crown. The green lady smiled. "My name is Toothiana. You can call me Tooth, if you like. I'm, well. I'm the Tooth Fairy."

"I know who you are," Jack muttered. A half-truth. He must have been told once that the little fairies he knew were of a kind and had a queen who commanded their every move, but it hadn't occurred to him that she might be human-sized. And she was beautiful, so colorful that it was hard to look directly at her after so long with only darkness and white. He managed it only in brief glimpses, not wanting to turn his back.

Below, the room had not been disturbed since the Easter Bunny's departure. The wardrobe lay on its door, held off the floor only by the bedframe, its contents scattered across his pile of snow. The door was closed, and from the pattern of debris it had not been disturbed since the rabbit left. How then had the Tooth Fairies gotten in?

As though reading his mind, Toothiana giggled. "You noticed?" She leaned in conspiratorally, dropping her voice to a stage-whisper. "That's a special trick me and my girls share. We can get through almost any door. Windows too, and they're much easier because you can see where you're going. It takes powerful magic to keep us away from our job."

Which meant that no matter where he fled or how he tried to hide, she would always be able to find him. Only Pitch's protection kept her away. Needles prickled up Jack's spine at the thought.

"It's nothing to be afraid of," Tooth continued, reading his distress. "Everyone's got their talents, after all. And, we have our manners." Babytooth popped from her hiding place, nodding with such enthusiastic pride that her entire body bobbed with each motion. "We won't come in if you lock the door. That's only polite, after all."

Jack frowned at that. He lifted his head and the hood slipped a few inches back. "Why would I lock it? You're the ones keeping me here."

The Tooth Fairy's smile wavered. Jack expected anger beneath the mask, but instead her eyes seemed sad. Babytooth was even less subtle, dropping a few inches with a disappointed sigh.

He had no time to wonder over the stranger reaction. At that moment, a knock echoed through the room. It rapped loud enough to be heard, with deliberate strength, but it did not pound, did not demand entry, merely requested. Silence followed as the knocker waited for reply. When he received none, the door opened slowly.

A brick wall of a man stepped into the room. At first glance, Jack confused him for an ancient yeti thanks to his long white hair and thick beard that fell almost to his waist. He wore all red with the sleeves rolled up, exposing forearms as big around as Jack's head and covered in tattoos. It was only when he squinted at these enough to make out the words "Naughty" and "Nice" in intricate bold script that Jack finally put it all together. This man was his host, the last Guardian. Santa Claus.

Nicholas St. North surveyed the destruction of his guest room and chuckled. To Jack's surprise, the laugh was not forced, but came in good humor. "Ho ho," he said. "I see Bunny was not exaggerating."

He stepped to the fallen wardrobe, rubbing his hands together. He set his stance and, with a single grunt of effort, hoisting the whole heavy wooden mess off the floor and back up to its proper place. Its contents remained scattered across the floor, but North just grinned and straightened the few fluffy fur coats that managed to remain on their hangers.

"There we go. No harm done. Now then…" He turned his face to the rafters, his grin warm and rosy-cheeked. "Jack Frost. Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last. I trust you have made yourself comfortable?"

Jack snorted in response. What was it with these Guardians and their fake friendly, touchy-feely nonsense? He was their hostage, not a house guest. Or did they think he'd forget that they'd sent their pet rabbit to snatch him off the streets?

North took his lack of reply in stride, stooping to collect the fallen drawers and their scattered contents. Tooth left her perch on the beam and darted near the floor to help gather fallen clothes, looking as natural in her flight as a fish in a steam. Babytooth flew with her for a moment, then doubled back to hover close to Jack, only to dart away again when he glared at her.

As he worked, North kept up a running commentary, filling in one half of a conversation to which Jack never replied. He asked after the boy's broken ribs – which twinged to remind Jack that curling over said wound would not help it repair anytime soon – and expressed his hope that the room's adjustments were to his guest's liking before moving on to the subject of food and additional comforts.

"Would you like anything, Jack?" he asked as he slotted the second drawer back into place. "We can bring cookies, eggnog, fruit cake…"

"My staff." Jack tossed his hood back and let one leg slip over the edge of the beam, ready to leap down and dash away. "Give it back so I can get out of here."

North paused, then went back to lining up the final drawer. "I am afraid we cannot do that."

Jack scowled, pulling his leg back up. "Of course you can't."

"Jack," said the Tooth Fairy, drifting a little closer but keeping out of arm's reach. "Nobody can leave the Pole right now, not through any of the doors. They've been completely locked down. No getting in or out."

Jack's chest tightened painfully, the brief hope he'd held of escape or rescue shattered with those simple words. "Because of Pitch, right?"

"Da," said North, finishing his work and straightening like a mountain rising after a long sleep. "There is but one month until Christmas now. Millions and millions of presents still to finish. If preparations were disturbed, I cringe to think of what could happen." He pushed the wardrobe doors closed and nodded thoughtfully when he found no damage from the fall. "More importantly, the measures are to keep us safe. And to keep you safe as well, Jack."

Safe. Right. Safe in the home of his enemy, away from his protector, his mentor, his home…

"I don't need your protection."

Again the bright mask slipped, this time from North's features, and again, instead of anger, it reveal a hint of sorrow. It was gone in another blink and the old man sighed, digging into one of his pockets. "If you say so, Jack. Here."

He tossed a small black object right at Jack's chest. The winter spirit caught it on instinct, reveal it to be an old iron key.

"The key to your room," said North, by way of explanation. "Though you will not be able to leave the Pole, you are free to wander within the Workshop to your heart's content. Or you may remain here. The choice is yours."

North crossed the room in two large stride and tapped the door's iron knob, which matched the color of the key exactly. "This door may only be locked or unlocked from the inside. If you wish to remain alone, you may. Simply lock the door and we will respect your wishes. Yes?"

The last question was directed at Toothiana, who nodded. "Yes, of course."

Babytooth's agreement, when offered, was decidedly more broken-hearted.

"On the other hand," said North brightly. "If you would like to see the workshop I would be happy to show you around…"

"No." Jack's fingers curled around the black key. Whatever trick the Guardians were trying to play, he wasn't about join in. "Just go."

He didn't expect them to leave. He expected them to linger, to cajole and try to coax him down from the ceiling until they finally lost their tempers and dragged him bodily to the floor. But they did not. The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus simply exchanged a glance of mutual understanding and left without complaint, she flying ahead to prevent a traffic jam as he maneuvered his impressive physique through the door.

The only one who hesitated was Babytooth. She glanced back at her mother once more before flying up into Jack's face, her little hands clutched against her breast. She chirped a thousand apologies, trying to tell him how much she'd only to help.

Jack turned his head away. In truth, he had missed the little fairy. She'd been good company for the short time they'd spent together in the Realm. But she'd also lead the Guardians straight to him and brought down Pitch's fury. Jack wasn't quite ready to forgive her after all that.

"Get out," he muttered. "I said go. Leave me alone."

Babytooth sighed sadly, but flew after her mother. Jack waited a moment after she left to make sure no one else came in, then leapt down from the support beam and slammed shut the door. He locked it tight and tossed the key into the far corner, fully intending not to touch it again until Pitch had the Guardians on the run and broke through their defenses to get him back.

Nothing about this situation made sense. He'd been kidnapped, knocked out, stuffed in an old bag and snatched off the streets. They ought to be holding him under lock and key, ransoming Pitch with demands for his safety or interrogating him for information on the Boogeyman's plans. Did they really think him so weak and stupid that he'd fall for their stupid tricks? Or was this some reverse psychology thing, trying to win him over by pretending they wanted to be friends?

Jack pulled his hood down with a sigh. He glared up at the magical light, wishing that he had a way to snuff it out, but that didn't seem to be forthcoming. He paced the length and breadth of the room, searching every nook and cranny for a weakness to exploit or some hint that he was being watched by magical means. He found nothing.

Finally, he retreated to the bed. Rather that fall onto the mattress, he crouched on the floor and dug a makeshift tunnel through the snow until he could squeeze into the space beneath the bed. The darkness there was familiar, but it did not respond to his touch, nor did it open to allow him passage. After all, he was not his master. Without Pitch, it was only shade.

Jack lay beneath mattress, snow, and wood, wishing for his staff, if only for the familiar comfort it brought. In its place, his fingers repeatedly traced the ancient markings that adorned his cuffs, repeating over and over their promise of protection, connection, and defense. He closed his eyes, took a shuddering breath, and called out to his mentor. "Pitch. Pitch, where are you? I'm here. I'm here."

But trapped as he was in the magic of the North Pole, the darkness did not respond.


	15. Of Wild Rides

Guess who's finally free from schoolwork for the semester! Now I can finally catch up on my writing for fun rather than education. Whoot.

**Chapter Fourteen: Of Wild Rides**

Jamie Bennett pressed his nose to the front window, peering out at the roiling gray clouds that choked Burgess's sky. Another storm was brewing, according to the news, and it wouldn't be a friendly one of dry snow and temperatures just below freezing like the snap that followed them to school. No, these clouds brought a nasty front filled with mean gray slush and black ice and air too frigid to venture outside. It was set to start at any time.

Jamie worried his bottom lip. Where were Caleb and Claude? They were supposed to come over two hours ago.

He dragged himself from the window and tried to put negative thoughts out of his mind. The twins were probably getting into trouble again, like always, and even if the storm hit before they made it over they'd just get their mom to drop them off. It would be silly to worry.

He went back to the living room, dodging the boxes of Thanksgiving and Christmas décor that cluttered the hall. Sophie lay on her stomach just inside the door, her fairy wings fluttering as she kicked her feet in time with the commercial jingle on the TV. She had half-a-dozen pieces of construction pattern scattered all around her, covered in various blobs of Crayola that matched the nubby crayons piled between her arms. Jamie's own artistic endeavor remained on the coffee table where he'd left it, his crayons sharp and neat in their box and his papers stacked, saved for the nearly-finished work right in the center of it all.

Jamie sat on the floor and frowned at his drawing, unsatisfied. This was the third or fourth time he'd tried to document the wild sled right that brought them safely home three nights before. Usually, he was good at this. He had a whole wall of stories-in-pictures plastered in his bedroom. But this one never felt completely right.

Something, he decided, was missing. But what could it be? He had the sled and the snow and Sophie's wings and the scary shadows in the trees he'd been convinced were going to eat them and the car that stopped just short of running them down and everything. So what did he still need?

He took the picture and shuffled over to his sister on his knees, holding it out so she could see. "Hey, Soph. What do you think?"

Sophie looked up, her green eyes bright with interest. When she saw the pictures she pouted and quirked her head to one side. "…No."

"Think it's missing something."

Sophie nodded, hair spilling haphazardly into her face.

"Yeah, me too." Jamie sighed, turning the picture back around to examine it further. "But what?"

"An-gee."

The phone rang in the kitchen, nearly drowning out Sophie's answer. Jamie blinked at his sister. "What was that?"

"An-gee," Sophie repeated, shuffling through her scattered pages. She popped up with a pale blue sheet covered in a messy scrawl of while, two-toned gray, and brown. "An-gee an-gee zoom."

Jamie stared at the scribble, trying to turn it into something, anything. Before he could, their mother called from upstairs. "Jamie. Phone."

"Coming!"

Jamie left his sister to her crayons and hurried into the kitchen, standing on his toes to pull down the cordless phone. He turned it on, called to his mother to hang up the other end, and pressed it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey Jamie."

"Claude!" Jamie's mood instantly brightened. He hopped over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair, swinging his feet as he bounced up into the seat. "Dude, it's about time. Where are you guys? You're way late!"

The voice on the other end crumbled an apology that didn't sound entirely sincere. Jamie hesitated. Something felt wrong. "You okay man? You don't sound too good."

"I'm fine," Claude snapped. "I'm just tired." He sighed, sending a burst of station across the line. "Look. Sorry, but we're not coming over today. Okay?"

"Oh," said Jamie, shifting the phone for a better grip. "Um, okay. That's fine. Why, did something happen?"

"No. I just don't feel like going out right now. I'm really tired. Besides, Cal's being a whiny little — ow!"

"I am not!" Caleb's interruption was followed by the sound of another punch hard enough to rattle the phone in his brother's grip. "You were the one who stayed up all night crying."

"No, _you_ were! You started it!"

"Guys!" Jamie gripped the phone close to his ear, trying to shout some common sense into his friends. Claude and Caleb always roughhoused, but this was the only time he'd ever heard them go so viciously. They could actually hurt each other! "Guys, stop it. Calm down."

"We are calm," twin voices chorused, angrier and more frustrated than ever. There was another static burst as the abandoned phone was reclaimed, then Claude gave a final, clipped, "We gotta go. See you later, Jamie," before the line went dead.

Jamie listened until the silence became a dial tone. He hung up, slipped out of the chair, and put the phone back in its cradle before shuffling out into the hall.

His mother craned her head through the stairwell from the second floor. "Everything okay, hun?"

"Fine Mom," said Jamie, though the sting of being hung up on by his best friends definitely did not feel fine. "The twins aren't coming over today. Claude's not feeling good."

"Oh? That's too bad. But you'll see them at school on Monday, right?"

"I guess." Jamie shrugged. His mother went back upstairs and he returned to the living room, still trying to puzzle out the reason behind his friends' odd behavior. He found Sophie once again absorbed in her drawing, but this time it wasn't blank construction paper that she scribbled on.

"Sophie, what are you doing? That's mine!"

Jamie rushed over, pulling the sled ride drawing out of Sophie's grasp. His sister beamed up at him, smiling so wide it showed off all of her little white teeth. "Fixed it," she said proudly.

"Fixed it? You didn't fix it, you scribbled all…over it…"

Jamie stared at the picture, getting a good look at Sophie's addition for the first time. Between their sled and the oncoming car, she'd added a splotch of light gray over darker gray with four sticks jutting out like a broken star – arms and legs, defined by pants and a shirt. Where the head should have been was a splotch of white, barely visible against the similarly-colored paper, and in the arms – if they were arms – was a brown line with a hook at the end like a candy cane.

Jamie stared at the figure and, in the back of his mind, he remember ice rising from the road and freezing instantly beneath the car's wheels. He recalled a solid and comforting presence in the wind that carried them from the woods. He remembered a warning, one he'd felt or imagined more than he'd heard.

_Jamie. Take Sophie and go. Now._

He swallowed, feeling oddly light-headed as he settled on the carpet next to his sister. "Sophie. What is this? Who is this?"

"An-gee," said Sophie for the hundredth time as though that explained everything. When Jamie continued to stare at her dumbly she puffed out her cheeks and used his shoulder to pull herself up. She toddled over to a box of Christmas ornaments just waiting for the after-Thanksgiving festivities and dug around inside, popping up a moment later with a hand-knit ornament in the shape of a Christmas angel.

"An-gee," she insisted, thrusting the ornament at her brother. "_Our_ an-gee."

And Jamie, for once in his life, found himself unsure of what to believe.

* * *

Jack's resolve to have no business with the Guardians lasted all of three days before the boredom became unbearable. He paced the chilly room, freezing the fun-off from his snowbank into a thin layer of ice that coated everything on the floor. He tried to pour all of his power into it and drain himself enough to sleep, but he'd already slept too much. He was too wired to do it again.

From across the room, he eyed the black hey, now frozen into its corner in a delicate web of ice. He could us it, could go out into the workshop and search for his staff and…

And what? Open himself to attacks? Fall into a trap? Face the Guardians again?

A knock on the door interrupted his spinning thoughts. Jack ignored it. While the Guardians had – surprisingly – kept their promise about not bothering him, the soft knocks bearing offers of food came two or three times a day. Usually, when he ignored them, they would go away.

But today they didn't, nor did they call to him to open the door. The knock repeated itself, too soft and small for Santa or the Rabbit. Probably the Tooth Fairy then, or maybe Sandman, since he wasn't talking. Jack almost considered answering it at that thought, but then he remembered the golden man chasing him through the Realm and put the idea out of his mind.

Ignored again, the knock came once more. Jack groaned in frustration. "Go away."

The knocking fell silent just long enough that Jack believed his visitor had gone. Then it started all over again, thumping and thumping too fast for a single hand, a whole stampede of tiny fists against his door. Jack groaned in frustration and snatched the key from its corner, scattering ice as he fumbled it into the lock.

"You said you'd leave me alone," he muttered as he turned the knob. "So leave. Me. Alone!"

He flung open the door. No golden man or glittering green fairy awaited him, only open air. Then he looked down.

Around the height of his ankles clustered six knitted red triangles with bells on their uppermost points. Gap-toothed jaws gawked at him from under bulbous noses. A dozen grimy hands held aloft a platter piled with every imaginable flavor of cookies in one chaotic mess.

The creatures – elves, Jack thought – gawked at him for a solid silent minutes. Then they shrieked and scattered in all directions, leaving the platter spinning on the floor. The cookies' sugar sparkled in the workshops' flickering lights.

Jack's stomach growled. Though he'd never admit it, he had a sweet tooth.

Before further disruption could come, he dragged the platter into his room. Some of the offerings were still warm. He tried these first, nearly burnt his tongue on melted chocolate, and stuck to freezing them from then on, savoring every variety in turn. He didn't need to eat, but he enjoyed it, and _oh_ it felt so good to be full.

He grew so absorbed with the bursts of sugary goodness that he didn't realize that he'd left the door cracked until Babytooth appeared, startling him in mid-bite. She buzzed around him with an eagerness that said she'd waited a long time for him to open the door and was so happy to see him and that she hoped hoped _hoped _he wasn't still angry. He little hands clasped a silver prize, a peace offering, which she pressed into his palm.

It was a coin – of course it was, what other gift had expected from a Tooth Fairy? – but it was no legal tender. Rather, it bore the shape of a snowflake, six point branches, core and all. Babytooth folded each of Jack's fingers around it and gently patted his knuckles.

It clicked. "Oh," said Jack. "For Jamie's tooth."

Babytooth nodded, peering up at him with pleading, mismatched eyes.

Jack sighed and stroked her golden plume with one finger. He couldn't completely forgive her. She'd still sold him out. But he had missed her, and he was too tired and too lonely to pretend otherwise. "All right. I'll forgive you for that."

Babytooth perked up with a happy cheer. She flew a few happy victory laps around Jack's head before dodging in to kiss his cheek and nuzzle into his neck. Jack chuckled and lifted a hand to return her affection, but before he could something slid into him from behind, startling him right out of the moment.

The 'something' turned out to be an elf, which looked as surprised as he was, flat on its back and wiggling its stocking-clad feet. It struggled to right itself but only managed to spin across the ice like a wayward hockey puck, its bell jingling all the way.

"What the heck?" Jack asked Babytooth, who shrugged. As though waiting for exactly that cue, the other elves who'd brought him cookies poured through the half-open door. They slipped and slid on the ice like chattering, caffeine-addicted pinballs, bouncing off the walls, the furniture, and each other.

Jack yelped and leapt onto the bed to escape the chaos, Babytooth clinging to the lining of his hood. "Hey! What are you idiots doing? Get out!"

The elves chattered and shrieked too much to listen. One grabbed Jack's pants leg and tried to pull itself up. Jack kicked it off, right into a cluster of its fellows who'd gathered around the cookies. They crumbled into a heap like ten-pin bowling and lay stunned for a split second before bursting into even louder chatters. They scrambled over the ice in a mob, scrabbling and grasping for Jack. _Again!_ Their bells chattered excitedly. _Do it again! Again! Again!_

Jack had never so badly desired to freeze a living thing solid, if only to make them shut up for a gosh-darned second. As he tried to shake them off, he moved to slip Babytooth's coin into the safety of his pocket, but it was intercepted half-way by an elf that leapt from the wardrobe onto his lap, sending the present flying.

The snowflake coin hit the wall on the opposite side of the room and clattered to the icy floor. The lone elf that stood apart from the mob picked it up and held it to the light, admiring its shine.

"Hey," said Jack, struggling under the weight of its comrades. "That's mine!"

The elf looked between him and the coin, then its eyes lit up as though it had just located a treasure it searched years to find. With the snowflake held triumphantly over its head, it made a run for the door.

Babytooth squawked in furious protest and shot after the elf as fast as her wings could carry her. Jack came seconds behind, throwing off the mobs of hats and leaping for the door to give chase.

They burst into the Workshop, first elf, then fairy, then Jack in hot pursuit, startling the yetis into yelps and hollers of surprise. Jack swore under his breath, wishing that he had his staff. He felt so clunky without it, slow and stuck to the ground. He made up for it where he could by ricocheting off whatever he could for extra distance, first alighting on a pillar, then a wall, and the a pyramid of blue robots that crashed to the floor and scattered paint everywhere, eliciting a moan of despair from their abominable craftsman.

Babytooth was fast in flight, but the elf knew the territory and thus held the lead. It skipped happily between the yeti's feet and ducked into the little hole at the end of a long workbench loaded down with toys and tools. Babytooth followed underneath while Jack took the high road, hardly noticing the cries of the yetis on either side, or the sudden rise of the massive globe past the table's end.

At the furthest tip of the long bench, just as the elf burst out with the intent to change direction, Babytooth caught it. She tackled it from behind, knocking it to the floor. The snowflake coin flew from its grasping hands and arched over the edge of the safety rails, into the open air of the dorm.

"I've got it!" Jack leapt off the worktable and stretched his furthest. One hand closed around the snowflake while the other caught the guardrail, dragging him back from a potential six-story fall. "Yes!"

He swung up onto the railing and perched there, turning to beam at Babytooth. Instead he found himself staring down the workbench at twenty yetis, who stared back at him in various states of shock and disrepair. One had his entire face covered in sparkling purple paint. Another was soaked through by the water gun she'd been adjusting. Others bore rainbow footprints on their fur which matched those on the table and Jack's own bare, paint-stained soles.

The whole sight was one of the funniest things Jack had ever seen. Before he could stop himself, he laughed.

The yetis came to life with a chorus of guttural yells, half of them rising from the bench while the others scrambled to salvage what they could of their work. One of them reached for Jack, but stopped dead when the boy leaned back far enough that a normal person would have tumbled over the edge.

Jack risked a glance over his shoulder. The drop was fairly high, at least six stories by his count, all of it open to contain the glimmering mechanical globe. Without his staff, the would be no wind to catch him, either. Only toy planes and flying saucers and dancing jellyfish balloons stood between him and the workshop floor.

He turned back to the yetis with a wink and a grin. "See ya."

He dropped.

Three of the yetis wailed in horror as he tumbled away. Jack fell a full story before alighting on an airplane to kill his speed and snagging the tentacles of a passing jellfish balloon. The toy didn't have nearly the power to keep him in the air, but it slowed his decent from a deadline drop to an exhilarating spiral around and around the massive globe.

Jack let out a cheer the moment he knew he wouldn't splat when he hit the ground. It echoed through the Pole, catching the attention of every elf and yeti to be seen. The whole spiraling ride lasted less than thirty seconds before Jack released the fish and landed, butt-first, in a massive bin of stuffed animal fluff.

He lay there, spread-eagle, and laughed his head off under a mountain of cotton until he heard Babytooth chirping worriedly above. Jack dragged himself to the surface of the bin, dangled over the open edge, and held the snowflake coin aloft, grinning from ear to ear.

"Now that," he said, "was _fun._"

Before he could recover enough to pull himself the rest of the way out, a gray-furred yeti thundered up, waving his arms and shouting garbled nonsense. He seized Jack by the shoulders and hoisted him out of the bin, holding him a full six feet off the ground.

"Grawpah!" he shouted, shaking the fluff off Jack's shoulders. "Rawrka mwarka grawpah!"

Jack's stomach clenched, knowing that an abominable snowman could easily snap him in two. Though his training screamed to keep quiet, he heard his own voice say, "Easy fuzzy! I don't speak bear."

The yeti roared, which faded into a groan. He turned Jack around and set him firmly on his feet, furry hands clasped over shoulders that were easily dwarfed. Jack tried to wrestle him off, only to be pinned in by the much stronger yeti and dragged around to face the big boss himself.

Santa Claus.

Jack froze. He expected anger. He expected yelling. He expected to be beaten black and blue and dragged back to his cell under lock and key to rot for good.

He did not expect Nicholas St. North to laugh. But that is exactly what happened.


	16. Eyes of Wonder

**Chapter Fifteen: Eyes of Wonder**

At the time, North had been in his office, conduction a war council with his various heads of staff. His fellow Guardians were out in the world, bypassing the defenses only via Bunny's equally-secure tunnels, the only way in or out of the Pole with the magical wards in place. The old rabbit personally accompanied Tooth on her rounds as Sandy spread dreams of the wondrous holiday season to come. Every effort on each front bolstered the belief of children against Pitch Black's relentless assault, but for Santa and his men, the most important tasks remained at the Pole.

November brought with it the true beginning of the Christmas season and the old magic it embodied, magic that North himself had tapped centuries ago to help carry children's light through the long darkness of winter. With fear closing in from every side, the loss of that magic would seal the fate of the world in favor of the Nightmare King. Therefore, no weakness could be allowed.

Of course, there was also the matter of Jack Frost, but the boy had been so quiet and reclusive since his recovery that North did not expect to hear from him that third day, either. He was therefore surprised when the workshop's assistant foreman burst in, keening in Abominable about the boy's wild ride.

North emerged on the workshop floor just in time to witness Jack Frost drop from the seventh floor like a snowflake, laughing his way straight into the bin of cotton that filled their stuffed animals. Phil, the head of security, raced after him snatched the child out of the fluff with the bellows of a worried parent.

"Boy!" he yowled in Abominable. "That item was never intended to support the weight of children! You could have been severely injured!"

"Easy fuzzy," said Jack Frost, his bare feet swinging two feet off the ground. "I don't speak bear!"

Phil moaned in frustration and swung the boy around, insisting that North tell him because he was boss and boy was human child who needed human scolding. North peered at Jack frost, who had stuffing clinging to his clothes like snow, and laughed with the pure infectious joy of witnessing another indulge in risk and be rewarded. "Bravo, Jack! Bravo!"

He moved to pat the boy on the back, but stopped when Jack cringed away. Anxiety and distrust flickered across the blue eyes. He expected to be struck, punished for his causing trouble.

North withdrew his hand, then slowly and deliberately clasped the boy's shoulders, keeping the touch light so Jack could withdraw the moment the wished. North waved off Phil's concerns and smiled at the boy, lowering his tone to a more normal register. "I have not seen yetis so lively since elves got into raw sugar. It is most amusing to see them with their fur in such knots, yes?"

Jack Frost glanced wearily from the hand on his shoulder to its owner. His fingers lingered on the edge of the iron manacles on his left wrist, tracing the shape of magic runes etched in its metal.

"You're not –" Jack stopped in mid-sentence, biting down on his tongue. North quirked his hand to one side, waiting patiently for the lad to continue on his own time. "You…Them. They're not mad?"

"The yetis, mad? No, no." Seeing how Jack eyed their fuzzy onlookers with something akin to fear, North situated himself between the boy and their audience. "They are, however, concerned. Are you injured at all?"

Jack Frost shook his head. "I'm fine."

"And your ribs?"

Pale hands moved automatically to rest over the bones in question. "They're fine too."

The yetis breathed a collective sigh of relief that made Jack jump. North lifted his hand clear of the boy's shoulder as his abominable workforce finally returned to their task, quickly cleaning up and reorganizing the mess left in their visitor's wake.

"Very good," said North, keeping his sigh internal. "Very good indeed. So long as you are out and about, might I take a look at those fractures? It would not do for them to heal improperly, after all."

Jack Frost hesitated, then shrugged. "That's okay, I guess."

North didn't miss the resignation in the boy's tone, as though his offer were an order that could not be denied. There would be time to work on that another day. He dismissed the heads of staff and led Jack to his private workshops which, being made mostly of ice, he suspected the boy would find more comfortable. The little funny-eyed tooth fairy – who seemed to have made up with Jack, much to North's relief – buzzed alongside them eagerly.

When they arrived, the magical lanterns were already lit and the curtains pulled tight against an endless winter night and the howling storm it contained. North cleared a space for Jack on the workbench, asked him to sit, then to remove the tattered hoodie. When the cloth had been discarded, he asked again for permission before beginning the examination. At each request Jack hesitated, looking bewilder, as though confused that a near-stranger would consider his consent. It made North wonder how often Pitch Black manhandled the boy, whether he had ever asked, and whether his touch was always so cruel as what they had seen.

He gently pressed his fingers into the boy's bandaged sides, the ribs in question all too easy to check by touch. As he applied a bit more pressure, he watched Jack's face for any discomfort. "Feel any pain?"

"No."

The Guardian hummed in satisfaction. "Good. That means we can take sides. Will only take a moment."

As deft fingers undid latches of white gauze and metal, the boy's gaze wandered to the nearest of the floating lanterns. They burned with cold fire that would not compromise the ice of any sculpture held to them for examination. North thought that this may have been the closest that Jack Frost had ever been to a flame, a suspicion only bolstered by the wonder that caught the boy's eye when he saw the flickering lights reflected through hundreds of frozen figures.

"What are all these?"

The question was hesitant, but genuine. Progress. Good progress. "They are prototypes for my inventions."

"Like those toys out there?" Jack's eyes widened. "You make those out of ice?"

"Yes. All those and many more. It quite the versatile tool, as you of all creatures must know."

The mini-fairy chirped in confirmation and buzzed through the loop-de-loop of a racecar track, her bright colors dancing all along the ice. Jack chuckled, holding out his hand for the fairy to land on when she returned. North offered them both a smile as he removed the last of his bandages and set them aside.

The little fairy landed on Jack's finger with a worried coo, staring at the twin bruises which his ice-pale chest. Though mostly healed, they still held the vague shape of horse's hooves. Time had faded them from the ugly color of a wilted eggplant to a faint shade of glaucous blue.

"And those?" North asked. "How do they feel?"

Jack traced the shape of one with his finger. "They'll be gone by tomorrow. I heal fast."

Fast, and yet he knew exactly how long it took for bruises to disappear. North took a short breath between his teeth. "Jack…"

The boy gazed up at North, hesitant. His hand fell from his chest to the cuff on the opposite wrist. How North despised those manacles, Pitch Black's cruel claim. The yetis had examined them from every angle and found no lock, no seam, no weakness to exploit so that they might be removed. The magic layered in its many runes was yet unknown, as North had little time to scour his library for clues.

He swore that would find an answer, not only to that, but all the rest of his questions as well. How often Jack had suffered abuse at Pitch's hands. How often the Nightmares were used to cause him pain. How long he'd been kept as prisoner to the Nightmare King.

But those answers would not come today, not when the boy still hesitated. North cleared his throat and handed the boy his shirt, starting again. "Do you know why you are here?"

Jack shrugged, tugging the hoodie on over his head. "Of course. I'm a hostage."

"What? No." The fairy squawked in disbelief. North frowned. He supposed the assumption was reasonable, but… "No, that is not our way. Guardians do not stoop to such levels."

Jack snorted. "Right. Then why are you keeping me here?"

"For your own safety." Because the boy was still too seeped in Black's world view to understand that he'd been rescued. The Guardian drew himself up against the boy's distrust, rising from his chair until he towered over the boy-spirit by over two heads. "Jack Frost. You are here because the Man in the Moon asked us to find you."

"Man in the what?"

"Man in moon." How much had Pitch kept from him? "It is the bright shining ball in night –"

"I know what the moon is." Jack scowled, tugging on the cords of his hood like a petulant child. "What do you mean there's a man in it? It's the moon."

"Yes," said North, moving from the work-desk to the window. "And ever since a long-bygone age it has been home to the first and greatest of the Guardians. He is our patron, the Man in the Moon – Tsar Lunar the Twelfth."

"Oh." Jack ducked his head and pulled the hood up over his head. It wasn't enough to hide the slight tremor that passed through his body. "Him I know."

North paused. He had, in his years, witnessed many reactions to the name of MiM. Respect. Gratitude. Curiosity. Near-religious fanaticism. But fear…that was a new one.

Coming from behind, he grasped the seam of the gray hood between two fingers and gently tugged it off the boy's head. This had the bonus of pulling drawing Jack's attention, bolstered by the mini-fairy buzzing just out of sight above his head. The boy leaned back, gazing at North with his head nearly upside-down.

"You have hidden from him your entire life, haven't you?" said North, his sharp mind working through their enemy's motivations. "Because you were told that he is enemy. That is why Pitch only allowed you freedom on new moons."

Expression drained from Jack's face, leaving behind a mask carefully devoid of all emotion. He slipped from the workbench onto his bare feet and began to pace the room, sliding his toes along the ice and rubbing each of his manacles in turn.

North watched without moving, keeping his distance, letting the boy set the boundaries. "I have seen the storms, Jack. I know that he has kept you locked away for many years. A century, at least. He kept you under lock and key."

"Those rules are to protect me," Jack said. "And with good reason, if Tsar Lunar's been looking for me. Look what happened when he found me. He sent you goons to kidnap me!"

"And do you know why that is?"

The boy's masked remained firm, but he didn't not speak again. North suspected that he was debating whether he really wanted to know. After a quiet moment, he shook his head. North sighed.

"To be honest, I do not truly know his reasons either." The old toymaker leaned into the ice beside the window and let his mind wander to a time when he too had been young and uncertain of his place in the world. "It is hard now to know for certain. Once, there were ways with which to speak directly with the moon, but such methods were destroyed long ago. Now, Manny must be indirect. His reasons and intent are not always clear. Still…"

North drew one curtain back from the window, peering into the darkness that currently surrounded the Pole. "I wish there were a way for you to meet him now, if only from a distance. But at this time, that will not be possible."

With only the fairy's buzzing wings to announce him, Jack approached curiously and peered under North's arm to see what he saw. Outside, the North Pole lay under the perpetual darkness of its coldest month, when the sun lurked to the south and did not show its face for many days. Winds rougher than any the boy had ever ridden pounded at the windows, rattling glass in its sill. Chunks of ice and snow big enough to decapitate an elf crashed against the mountainside, which cracked and groaned under the strain.

"This storm is not natural," said North for Jack's benefit. "I suspect it to be the work of a spell by Pitch Black. It is odd, however. While he has stolen – acquired – much knowledge of magic over many centuries, I have never known Pitch to have talent for weather."

He gauged the boy's reaction, taking note of body language first as the mask remained in place. Jack clenched and unclenched his fingers to keep the feeling in them as he tried to puzzle out the meaning in North's words.

"Have you ever performed such spells, Jack?"

Again, Jack shook his head. "I don't have the power for magic. I'm too…" He shrugged. "…weak."

The fairy chirped in protest. "Nonsense," North said.

"It's true."

"Bah." North pulled the curtains closed, rounding back to the workbench to draw the boy's attention back to the workshop and the wonders it contained. "I may not know for sure why Manny has called you here, and Bunny may disagree as he always does. But! I suspect that Man in Moon has named you, Jack Frost, as Guardian."

The boy's mask faltered, one pale eyebrow rising up the brow. Before Jack could interject, North continued. "If that is the case, then weak is the last thing you must be. If Man in Moon wishes for you to be a Guardian, then you must have something very special inside."

"Like what?"

'Like what' indeed. North stroked his beard, contemplating the best way to explain. In the corner of his eye, he caught a familiar glimpse of red along one of the wooden shelves. Perfect!

"Here," he said, taking the wooden toy from its place and holding it out to Jack. The doll, which bore his own likeness, had been crafted for him years ago by his mentor Ombric as a final gift, to remind him of all the potential he contained. "This is how you see me, yes? Very big, intimidating, but if you get to know me a little…go on."

He passed the doll to Jack, who had to use both hands to grasp the slick wood. The boy frowned at the gruff expression of North's sword-wielding painted self for a moment before negotiating off the top half, revealing a smaller doll with a broad smile.

Jack's eyebrow raised again, this time in confusion. "You're saying that inside you're actually kind of…jolly?"

"Yes!" said North, taking the bottom half away and dropping the second doll into Jack's grasp. "But not just jolly. I am also….mysterious."

Jack had trouble hiding his snickers at the reveal of the dramatic, cloak-brandishing third doll.

"And fearless…"

The fourth doll roared in silent anger, brandishing the tattooed promise to face any danger in defense of what was right.

"And caring…"

The fifth doll, second-to-last, smiled warm as it nursed a baby reindeer. The mini-fairy buzzed around it curiously before collecting its top set on the table with the others.

"And at my center…"

The final doll dropped into Jack's palm, wrapped in swaddling clothes hand-painted a brilliant candy apple red. Jack Frost sighed, rubbing his temple in a manner that hinted his patience with confusion was at an end. "It's a tiny wooden baby."

"Look closer," North urged. It was easy to miss this final meaning, but as with so many things in life, the details were of greatest value. "What do you see?"

"I don't know," said Jack with a groan. He passed the doll from palm to palm, scowling at it. "You've got big eyes."

"Yes!" said North, startling Jack into dropping the doll. "Big eyes, very big, because they are full of wonder. That is my special gift, my center. It is what I was born with, eyes that have always been able to see the wonder in everything. This wonder is what I put into the world, and what I protect in children. It is what makes me a Guardian."

That same wonder swelled within him at the thought of all the glorious things he had done and seen. Witnessing the world's strongest magic first-hand. Teaching himself to combine it with the technology of man. Conquering fear itself and putting a true end to the Dark Ages, once and for all.

He beamed at Jack Frost, who stared back bewildered, but not afraid. North scooped the baby doll from the floorboards and set it alongside its five partners, his full spectrum of personality laid bare.

"All Guardians hold such a center. It is my belief that you do as well." If the boy had been more trusting, he would have clasped him as a father would his child. But the last thing North wanted was to push too hard, so he restrained himself to placing one finger over his heart. "Your gift, your center, is why Manny asked us to find you. The only question that remains now is what, exactly, your center is and what you will do with it once it is uncovered."

Jack shook his head. Clearly convince him would take some time but at least, for now, he understood. "What makes you think I even have one?"

"You do," said North. "I feel it. In my belly."

The utter disbelief that shattered Jack's mask was so funny that North couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

Jack laughed along with the jolly old toymaker, because the implication that Santa's stomach thought him something special was so ridiculous that he couldn't hold it in. The whole situation was foolish to the extreme. To think that he would ever become a Guardian! Bribing kids, spoiling them rotten with presents and promises the world couldn't keep.

No. That wasn't the life for him, to say nothing of abandoning his mentor. He was only here until Pitch came to his rescue. Nothing more.

Before any more strange proclamations or rambling lectures could be made, a yeti pounded on the workshop door. It didn't wait for permission before charging in, ranting and raving and waving its fuzzy arms. From what Jack could gather, the frustration was not his fault this time – the creature kept sweeping its hands up from its skull, forming two long ears.

"All right, all right!" said North, waving his hands to calm the yeti with a sigh. "My apologies, Jack, I must take care of this. You will be careful on your own from now on, yes? We would not want you to get hurt."

Jack shook his head, still bewildered as to why Santa Claus, a Guardian, would be so concerned about his well-being. North apparently took this as agreement, somehow, and followed the yeti back out onto the workshop floor, speaking rapidly in half-Russian, half…whatever it was that yetis said.

Babytooth buzzed a few times around Jack's head before settling just beyond his nose and chirping suggestions. They could, she said, go back to the room now, or to the kitchen for more cookies, or find those blasted elves again though they didn't want to cause any more trouble…

But Jack didn't feel much like doing any of those things. He rather liked the silence of this room compared to the hustle and bustle of the surrounding factory. The lights here were softer, too, more like stars or the glittering eyes of Nightmares in the shadows, though they still glowed far brighter than he cared for. And then there were the toys! Glittering works of art in hand-carved ice, each meticulously crafted. They reminded Jack of the statues he'd made in his room within the Realm, though even his most detailed structures didn't quite compare.

He picked up one of the carved trains, studying its moving wheels and axis before moving on to a doll with ball-shaped joints, then a tiny bird with wings that really flew. Each new piece introduced a new detail or technique he was itching to give a try. Without his staff, he couldn't produce ice in large quantities, but something small…

"Hey, Babytooth," he called, pulling a stool up to one of the tables and clearing a space. "Come here."

The fairy flew over, eager to see what he was up to. He had her post on the edge of the racecar track, perched as still as she could manage with her wings outstretched but still. Starting with a single ice-formed marble, Jack summoned frigid ice and tiny particles of water, directing them into place with his hands and his breath and his base control of ice. He formed a tiny body etched with feather-patterns, delicate wings attached to frozen joints, and a head that could turn in place to look in all directions.

As always, he became so absorbed with his own efforts that he completely lost track of time. Hours flew by, unnoticed in spite of Babytooth's occasional relocations to expend her nervous energy. It was only when Jack glanced up to find the Sandman watching him that he remembered where he was and what situation he was trapped in.

Jack yelped in surprise and lost his concentration, dropping the ice-fairy doll. Sandman moved quick, tossing out a golden cloud that caught the toy before it could shatter upon the table. He set it gently on the wood and breathed a silent sight of relief.

Jack, his nerves calming, chuckled in relief. "Nice catch. Thanks for that."

Sandman smiled at him kindly, waving a hand as though to say, 'Don't mention it.' Freed from her role as model, Babytooth flew close to see what Jack had made. Jack lifted the tiny replica up-right to balance on its pointed toes, placing its hands in Babytooth's so she could support it herself. The little fairy cooed in delight, flying slow circles to turn the doll in place like a ballerina.

Sandman motioned to the doll and formed several shapes above his fingers: a flower, a butterfly, a princess crown, a star. Then he gave Jack a thumbs-up.

"I don't get it," said Jack, wondering what he'd done this time.

Sandman shrugged. Apparently, there were some things that simply couldn't be communicated through pictures. But apparently, he was happy to let someone else do it for him, as the queen Tooth Fairy shortly appeared, her wings announcing her presence long before she and her entourage arrived.

"Jack, there you are! Your door was unlocked and the room was empty and I was so hoping you'd be willing to join us for dinner and –" She spotted Babytooth dancing with her tiny replica and gasped. The three mini-fairies who accompanied her echoed the sound before converging on the table for a better look. "Oh, Jack…."

Jack squirmed on his stool, suddenly realizing how awkward this could become very quickly. He hadn't thought much about why he'd used Babytooth as the basis for the toy. She'd been the first thing he'd seen, and he was inspired. Now that her queen had arrived, how would she take it…?

Babytooth and her sisters chirped among themselves, lifting the doll from the table and carrying it, as a group, to Toothiana. The Fairy Queen gathered the doll in both palms like a precious jewel and held it delicately, her pretty face melting into a warm smile.

"Jack, it's beautiful. It looks just like her! I had no idea you could make such wonderful things. Nicholas, look."

North had reappeared behind her, apparently surprised to find Jack still in the same room. He took the doll with surprisingly steady hands, examining its moving wings, its turning head, the little arms that moved just a bit at the shoulders.

"Molodets – a fine design," he said, holding one wing outstretched and lifting it to the nearest lantern's light. "Did you intend for it to fly?"

Jack shrugged, his cheeks frosting over at all the sudden attention. "Maybe. I mean, I guess that'd be cool. Little girls love fairies so it'd be pretty sweet if it could fly like the real thing and…"

What was he saying? He shut his mouth up tight. It didn't matter if girls liked fairies. Sure it might be fun to fly a little toy around the room, but what if it ran into someone? What if it got caught somewhere high up and the kids got hurt trying to get it down? What if someone swallowed the parts?

"An excellent idea," said North, unburdened by such realities. He dug a metal stand out of a drawer and propped the fairy in it with her wings outstretched, returning it to the table alongside Jack's clenched fists. "I can show you how to craft the mechanisms. But that is for another time. For now, we must eat. Will you join us, Jack?"

In spite of his grumbling stomach, Jack refused. Again, the Guardians did not press. He returned to his room with a tray of pot pie and cold milk, left to eat alone as he demanded. Whatever fun he had, however much he took advantage of their soft-hearted kindness and rambling oddities, he couldn't forget who these people actually were. He couldn't give in to their tricks. And it had to be a trick. No one would be so kind to a prisoner of war.

Outside, the fierce storm that swallowed the North Pole raged on.


	17. Seeds of Hope

**Chapter Sixteen: Seeds of Hope**

As a gray dawn crept into the sky over England, a tiny Tooth Fairy flew for her life. In her little hands she clutched the upper-left cuspid of Abigail Sutherland, age six, and the precious memory it contained of hot chocolate in the village square. Bound to protect it by the oath of her uniform, the fairy darted and dodged through tight village streets. She took every sharp corner, twisted through the dangling maze of Christmas décor, and squeezing into every tight space that she could find.

But it was no use. The Nightmare on her tail was too swift and too determined. It snapped her up the instant she attempted to break into the open air. With a single gulp, she landed in its ribcage alongside three of her sisters. Abigail Sutherland's tooth slipped through the bars and tumbled right into the waiting palm of the Boogieman himself.

"Ah," cooed Pitch Black to his loyal mare. "That's a good girl. Come get your reward for all your hard work."

The Nightmare cantered to its master's side, proudly tossing its head and rattling the fairies in their cage. Despite the wee creatures' protests, Pitch tossed the cuspid into the mare's waiting maw. In seconds, the already-twisted Nightmare began to change even further. Its teeth grew to three-inch long fangs. Its mane and tail grasped at the air with a demented life of their own. Its ribs sharpened into jagged, pointed blades with serrated edges like knives meanth for steak.

Three of the four fairies clung to each other to put space between them and the blades' edge; but the fourth flew close to the ribs as she could and shrieked at the Nightmare King in fury.

Pitch glared at the creature down his long nose. He thrust his hand into the Nightmare's cage without so much as a scratch and ripped the fairy from her sisters, holding her tight in his fist.

"Don't you take that tone with me you miserable waste of magic," he growled, squeezing the fairy until she gasped for breath, then squeezing even harder until he felt her bones strain against his hand. "After all your wretched ilk have cost me you're lucky I don't just torch the lot of you and turn your feathers into carpet stuffing…!"

Three sounds – a snap, a shriek, and pop – rang out in rapid succession. The first came from the fairy's delicate wing, which shattered under the force of Pitch's palm, drawing the second from the creature's throat as a scream of pain. The third came from a string of glittering white lights that adorned the drainpipe over Pitch's head when all of the bulbs burst in a single powerful surge.

Glass showered from the ruined string, drawing Pitch's attention back to their current location. Like so many other villages throughout the world, this one brimmed with anticipation for Christmas. Sparkling lights and evergreen wreaths decorated every home. The store fronts lining the cobblestone square bore displays of presents and toys straight out of Nicholas St. North's most saccharine dreams. And in the center of it all was a healthy pine tree, its branches heavy with ornaments hand-crafted to plant wonder in the heart of all who saw them.

Pitch scowled in disgust. He slapped the Nightmare's flank with his free hand and ordered, "Take care of this junk."

The Nightmare snorted and charged on the attack, its torso still buzzing with captured fairies. Accompanied by its chorus of snapping branches and shattering bulbs, Pitch stepped into the shadows and slipped away.

On the next exhale, he reappeared in his dark Realm. He tossed open the nearest cage and flung the wounded fairy inside, lingering only to savor the fears of her comrades before stalking to the tarnished globe in the chamber's heart. Though thousands of its flickering sparks had died since his assault on Tooth Palace, thousands more continued to glimmer as stubbornly as North's blasted trees.

Pitch pursed his lips and rounded the globe three times, tallying the lights. Wonder and anticipation kept them strong even in these dark times, bolstered by bright decorations and starched-white TV specials and dreams that smell of sugar plums. That, of course, was the whole point. If Pitch wanted a swift victory, he would have moved at Easter to uproot fragile new hopes that depended on the warmth of spring to survive. Christmas was built, by North's design, to withstand the fiercest winter storms. Attacking during this season meant investing in a long siege.

Pitch knew all of that. At his center, he remained a general, a strategist, a conquering king. But with winter magic at his disposal, the risks were more than worth it. He'd wanted to savor the Guardian's fear as everything they'd built for centuries, all their desperate attempts to revive the Golden Age, crumbled around them. They should have been weak. Helpless. Terrified.

But they weren't.

Pitch hovered over the open gap of the North Pole, dipping his hands into the swirls of black sand that hovered there. He couldn't taste a single hint of true fear. Similar emotions – weariness and concern – sparked and flared, but there was no fear, because the Guardians had a trump card. They had Jack. _His_ Jack.

Hissing, Pitch whipped the Nightmare Sand storm into a spiraling hurricane-force wind that engulfed the North Pole and everything around it. Thousands of miles to the north, the storm he'd whipped up in the real world howled with new life, battering the Pole's magical barrier with ice and wind.

Pitch allowed the anger to fill him, pouring into his long-distance spell and stirring the storm ever fiercer. The realm rumbled in response to his rage. Leaving the Guardians as weak and hated as he'd been after the Dark Ages would no longer satisfy his vengeance. Now, he intended to decimate the Guardians and everything Tsar Lunar ever touched. When he finished with them, no fool, not even the last great remnant of the Golden Age, would dare to steal from the Nightmare King again.

High above, one of the fairy cages creaked and clattered, threatening to fall. A low moan echoed from deep within the Realm. The Boogieman stopped, dragging himself from the globe and his own fury. He sucked a slow breath through his teeth. Held it. Released.

The Realm settled. In their cages, hundreds of Tooth Fairies trembled with fear.

Pitch patted the nearest wall. "There now, old friend. We wouldn't want you coming undone at the seams."

Somewhere in the distance, a metal beam groaned as though to agree.

In truth, Pitch knew little of his realm's origin or nature. It didn't really matter. Their arrangement had been mutually beneficial for centuries.

Pitch returned to the globe, observing this time from a distance. In addition to the massive swirl of power at the Pole, smaller spirals of his black sand spun their lazy way around the earth, carried by cold fronts and winter migrations. Some – those tinged with silver – represented storms. Others, herds.

Pitch closed his eyes and whispered a spell to observe his forces both far and wide. Some combed cities for new children to infect. Others rode the winds, bringing fear to every continent. Each hour, more Nightmares came into being, and more children fell to their sway. And then, there was his secret weapon: the creature building strength each day within the Guardian's fortress.

Yes…the barrier may hold his storm at bay for now, but it couldn't last. Soon enough, a weakness would emerge, ripe for exploitation. His forces would break from inside and out, bringing the mighty Nicholas St. North to his knees.

The loss of Christmas would be the Guardians' death knell. And it was only a matter of time…

* * *

The fifth day of his captivity saw Jack once again out of his room, exploring the Pole for the third day in a row. As with the previous day, he stuck to side-corridors and unused halls, rafters, and decorative nooks, anywhere he could move through the shadows with being seen. It was more out of habit than anything else. He was searching for his staff and the Guardians must know it, since Babytooth followed him everywhere, yet no one moved to stop him. In fact, North seemed to take all his sneaking as some sort of game. He must have encouraged the yetis to play along too, because all they ever did when they found Jack sneaking around was roll their eyes, drag him from any potential dangers, and go on with their business.

It was strange. Everything here was strange.

To escape the oddity, Jack left the factory today in favor of searching the many tunnels bored into the frozen ground. They were surprisingly orderly compared to the chaos of the shop and each held something different. In one, Jack found a massive sleigh undergoing a tune-up, from its runners to its impressive wings. In another, he came face-to-face with a team of reindeer, who seemed to like the way he smelled if their insistent sniffing and nudging was any indication.

Slipping from their pen, Jack caught the scent of fresh pine and followed it deeper into the mountain. Conversely to what he'd seen in other parts of the Pole, the air warmed around him, enough to be noticeable without causing discomfort to a winter spirit. The magic lights brightened until they resembled a semi-natural glow. Finally, Jack found the trees.

Hundreds of evergreens – not just pine, but spruce and cedar and fir – filled a huge natural chamber in what seemed to be the heart of the mountain. Here the stone floor gave way to rich, moist earth so full of the potential for life that even Jack could feel it seeping through his bare feet. All shapes and sizes of tree were clustered together in a single semi-wild forest, from humble saplings to towering giants worthy of decorating a palace.

Here, near the center of the woods, Jack stumbled upon the Easter Bunny. It shuffled between the trunks in half-hops on all fours, favoring his front paws and right hind leg. A large basket full of pine cones and holly berries hung off the elbow of his right arm. Every few minutes or so, a wind-up egg popped from the foliage, ran up the rabbit's limbs, and either deposited or swiped a gone from the basket before disappearing again into the trees.

For a while, Jack watched from one of the many tannenbaum branches and considered leaving the chamber. He didn't like the Easter Bunny. Couldn't trust the creature, not after he'd been jumped by it twice. But the egg and the cones made him curious, as did the rabbit's odd gait. His left hind leg bore extra wrapping. He'd been injured. Possibly against Pitch.

Jack hesitated, just for a moment. He worried his bottom lip and glanced to Babytooth for support. She nodded encouragingly and motioned him towards the Easter Bunny. Reassured, Jack dropped from the branch and somersaulted, hooking his knees around a lower extension and flipping upside-down to poke his head from the greenery. He appeared just a few feet from the rabbit's ears.

"What're you doing?"

The Easter Bunny twitched his way, ears first, then eyes. He showed no sign of surprise. Jack guessed that the rabbit had pinned him from the moment he arrived. The Bunny – North called him 'Bunnymund,' – shrugged and continued his shuffling, digging into a needle-strewn patch of earth. "Planting."

"Why?" Jack quirked his head. This place seemed natural-esque to him, did it really need the extra help?

"'Cause you gotta move the DNA around a bit between generations, fill in the gaps where it doesn't naturally fall. Keeps the crops healthier, gives the little ones some room. Prevents rot."

"Okay." _Whatever you say, cottontail._ "But why're you doing it? This isn't your place."

Again, the rabbit shrugged. "It's closer than most. I like it down here. Besides, with all the color schemes finalized, it's the best place for me to help out."

He placed a cone in the new hole and covered it with dirt, patting the whole thing down even before he moved on. Jack swung on his branch until the distance between him and the rabbit grew too far. Babytooth took flight, and Jack swung into the next tree like an acrobat, righting himself with a twist and balancing on the next branch up. Frost spread over every pine needle he brushed past.

"Huh," he said, leaping into another tree to keep ahead of the Bunny. "So what happened to your leg?"

Green eyes flickered to the gauze-wrapped wound, as though Bunnymund had forgotten it was there. "Nothing. Just a scratch."

"Reeeaaally." Jack snorted. He balanced on a particularly long branch with his arms outstretched, wandering to the very tip, where it bent beneath his weight but didn't quite snap. "Those yetis got awfully worked up over a 'scratch.'"

The rabbit's big ears twitched. Jack took that to mean he was right – the wound had come that first day he left the room, when North left him in the workshop on his own. "They thought it might be infected."

"By what?"

"Nightmares."

Jack stilled. The branch sagged beneath him, arching towards the ground. He crouched, grasping the wood with his hands to keep from falling off. Bunnymund didn't seem to notice. The rabbit settled under the spruce Jack currently occupied and stretched out the limb in question. He might have been checking the bandages. He might also have been showing off the scar.

"Took on a herd of the buggers over Beijing. One got a chunk out of me, but we kept them clear of the ankle-biters. That's what matters."

Jack frowned. Babytooth, hovering in the air near his left ear, made a sound of concern. Jack ignored her, dropping off the bent branch and landing easily on his feet like a cat. "You shouldn't do that."

Bunnymund raised an eyebrow at that. Such a human expression on a non-human face. More strangeness.

Jack traced the runs on his left brace, then the right, kicking at the circle of ice that scattered around his landing. "Kids need those Nightmares. To keep them safe."

"Pitch tell you that, did he?"

"Yes." Jack scowled. He didn't like the rabbit's tone. "Nightmares teach kids to be afraid of things that hurt them. They show what happens when you break the rules. That keeps kids safe. It makes them better."

"Issat so."

And there he went again! Arrogant, dismissive, mangy pile of fur…

"It's better than coming out of your hole once a year to bribe them with chocolate so they'll be good."

Both of Bunnymund's ears snapped straight up. His breath hitched, he stood straight like a man, and the fur along his spine flared. A second later it all settled and he relaxed, though he remained upright rather than crouched. "So that's what you think we do." He scratched at one ear with his paw, chuckling beneath his breath. "Over-simplification if I ever heard one…"

He leaned down only enough to set down the basket. Eggs continued to run to and from the woven device, fetching and retrieving the seed-cones with their own sense of structure and speed. His full height made Jack nervous. The rabbit towered over him by two, maybe three feet if you counted the ears. He felt small. Vulnerable. He wished he could find his staff.

He might have fled, except that Bunnymund seemed to notice his discomfort and kept his distance, wandering instead from trunk to trunk and knocking on them as though looking for one that was hollow. All the while he kept talking, even and measured, never raising his voice or speeding up with anger. Clearly, for whatever reason, he was making a concentrated effort to keep himself under control.

"I'll tell you a secret, kid: Fear isn't something you teach. There isn't a creature in the universe that's born without fear. That's why babies come into the world screaming. We're all afraid, sometimes. It's part of being alive."

He paused at an old-looking pine, knocking its trunk a second and then a third time. His ears twitched towards the tree, listening intently for…something. When he found it, or didn't find it, he took a deep breath before pressing his paw into the bark. He slowly exhaled.

The hairs on the back of Jack's neck stood up. Pitch had never allowed him to witness too many of the extensive rituals, but he'd seen enough casual magic in his time to recognize a spell. But it didn't feel like the cool, velvety darkness that Pitch used. This magic went against his nature. A spring-person spell. Life.

As he watched, the tree shifted like an old man stretching in his sleep. Cracks echoed from overhead and Jack backed off just in time to avoid a rain of dead bark. A fresh, new layer, pale and soft, covered the trunk in its place. The tree's branches ruffled with no wind, as though sighing in relief.

Bunnymund popped a crick out of his neck and cracked his knuckles, continuing on as though he hadn't expended any energy at all. "Truth is, Pitch doesn't create fear. He can't create anything. He's an old pirate, nothing more. Those Nightmares? They're just Dreamsand, corrupted by fear and black magic. And don't get me started on the Fearlings –"

"The what?"

"Ancient history. You never saw one lurking around that other place of yours?"

Jack strained his memory. There were times in the Realm when the feeling of being watched startled him awake, or when he thought something might be following him through the tunnels. But that was just how the Realm was. He'd never seen a thing. He shook his head.

"Count yourself lucky then. We took most of those out during the Dark Ages." Bunnymund gathered a handful of bark and a large pinecone from around the tree's roots. He tapped the ground with his foot, then moved and did it again, like he had with the trunks. "Point is, Pitch can't create fear, and he doesn't control it either. He _feeds_ on fear. So what he's got to do is twist things until people fear them, or him, and then he feed on what they make and it keeps him going.

"But fear doesn't need those things to exist. It doesn't need Pitch. He needs it."

"That's not –"

Jack stopped in mid-protest. If he thought about, really thought about it, he'd never actually been told otherwise. He'd always assumed, from the way Pitch talked, that fear was something palpable, something he could touch and twist and use to do what he needed, like the ice and snow that Jack made. But maybe it was different. It made sense, from what he'd seen, for it to be different.

Ignoring Babytooth's whispered concerns, he retreated again to a nearby tree – not the one the Bunny had de-barked – and swung up into the branches in a few leaps. Bunnymund kept one eye on him, waiting for him to finish what he'd started. When Jack didn't, he continued on the same vein as before, still tapping the ground with his foot as though looking for something.

"As for the kids, they've got enough to fret over without being scared of their own shadows. They don't need to fear trees to know that fallin' out of one'll hurt. All that comes from teaching them to be afraid is making it so they never get near the woods. And then they'll never get to be where you are. Will they?"

Jack stopped, dangling from a low branch like a sloth. He scowled. The rabbit's grin was even more infuriating viewed upside-down.

"I guess not," he muttered, not completely willing to concede the point. Part of his mind whispered that kids weren't like him. They couldn't float down like a snowflake and land on their feet or expect to bounce up if they didn't. Still, something inside him despised the idea of children never climbing trees. Kids were kids. Kids should climb trees.

Bunnymund nodded, his expression difficult for Jack to read – was he satisfied with the answer? With himself? Or just thoughtful? Having patted down practically all the earth in a six-foot radius, he suddenly crouched again, digging into the ground with his front paws.

"Now for us – well, things're a bit different on our end. Easter brings hope. Christmas gives wonder. Those're things that don't come packaged with life. What you get instead is potential. Kinda like this –" He held up a double-handful of rich black earth. "Good, fertile soil, and plenty of it. Kids' minds are kind of like that."

He lowered the dirt back into the hole, digging a bit deeper and mixing in fallen needles and a scattering of old, she bark. "The point of growing up is figuring out what to plant there, and how. That's what we do. We plant the seeds."

Jack swung up-right, letting his feet dangle. He wondered where the rabbit was going with this. He didn't want to know what the Guardians thought they were doing. He shouldn't be listening, he should leave and go back to his room and wait for Pitch.

But he stayed. For the life of him, he didn't know why.

Bunnymund held up a pinecone, open and heavy with seeds. He ran his claws down the sides, stripping the scales into an open palm. He tosses the stripped cone away and carefully selects a seed from the pile.

"You have to start little," he says, pushing the scale of wood into the freshly-tilled ground. "Plant 'em real deep. Then you add to it, like parents do – plants get sunlight and water. Children get love. You guard the seeds and keep 'em safe and eventually…"

He lays his paw flat over the ground, like he had on the tree. He breathed in. Held it. Breathed out. This time, Jack thought he saw his lips moving, but the shape was too weird for him to figure out the words. The air around them rippled with spring magic, as it had before. When Bunnymund lifted his hand, a seedling followed it up from the earth, its tiny head pointing to the sky.

"Eventually, that little seed blossoms into something beautiful," finished Bunnymund, as though whispering the final verse to a prayer. He gently straightened the seedling in its plot, patting down the earth around it and adding a bit more to secure its new roots. "And it does more than that. It creates new seeds to pass on to other plots, while the roots keep hold the soil together, protecting against the things that'd wash that raw potential away – like fear."

That finally shook Jack out of unraveling the metaphor. He shook his head, trying to clear away any lingering doubts and get his senses back the way they should be. "No. No, fear's a good thing. Fearing the rules keeps kids out of trouble. It keeps them from hurting themselves, from hurting each other. Without it they'd be in danger."

Bunnymund shrugged, folding a layer of pine needles over the seedling's roots as though tucking the trunk in for a nap. "Some people say that. I've seen parents use it to keep their ankle-biters in line. Doesn't work so well in practice, though. For my money, using fear's a bit like spraying gardens down to kill the weeds. Might keep a few bad habits in control, but it stunts the growth of anything else."

With the new seedling secured, the rabbit straightened all the way to his full height, popping a whole series of joints in his back, shoulders, and neck. He fixed Jack with those intense green eyes, watching his reaction. Studying him. "Nothing good blossoms out of fear. And too much of it makes people – grown-ups especially – do terrible things."

"Oh yeah?" Jack gulped. "Like what?"

"Ask Tooth sometime." Bunnymund waved him off, shuffling stiffly through the undergrowth. "She'll tell you. But do it gently, all right? It's an old wound."

From the way he moved, the "just a scratch" on his leg felt like an old wound as well, one that hadn't healed and been allowed to hang open ever since. Jack wondered how long the rabbit had been at this, pouring magic into the trees to bolster their health. He wondered how much energy it cost him, how weak he became as a result. He wondered why he cared.

With his mind turning the whole strange conversation over and over, Jack couldn't think of anything more to say. Apparently, Bunnymund expected as much. He whistled between his teeth, summoning the eggs – an even dozen of them – from the foliage. They all piled into the basket, which Bunnymund hooked on his arm before sauntering out sight and leaving Jack on his own without so much as a by-your-leave.

Jack leaned back against the tree trunk and stared his feet, wondering. Babytooth landed on his knee and quirked her head to one side, but had nothing to offer that would help him sort out the mess of mind. He shouldn't even be thinking about this. He knew right from wrong. And yet…

Something in him resonated with what the rabbit said. He knew it wasn't right, it couldn't be. But he couldn't shake it off.

So he stayed there in tree. He wondered. And he didn't stop for a long, long time.


	18. Distant Memories

**Chapter Seventeen: Distant Memories**

Gray clouds choked the sky over Burgess as they had for over a week. Jamie Bennett frowned up at them as he led his sister to the bus stop, clutching Sophie's tiny hand in his own. Clouds in winder should not have been a strange thing, and yet…something was wrong.

As of late, Burgess had become exceedingly gray. Most years, the lead-up to Christmas saw the city transformed into a forest of red and green, frosted liberally with ice. Now, the snow – so white and pure just the week before – turned heavy and gray, dirty slush soaking into socks and pants cuffs. On bad days, it was hard to tell where the city ended and the sky began.

Today was not a bad day, but as Jamie arrived at the bus stop he guess that it wouldn't be a good one either. His friends were already there. No one was talking. There were no games or jokes or puzzles. There weren't even any books or comics out, just school bags and lunch boxes and sullen expressions.

Sophie whimpered, pressing close to Jamie's leg. Jamie gave her hand a squeeze and forced himself to smile, though it felt so awkward that it almost hurt. "Hey Caleb. Hey Claude."

The twins mumbled, illegible in their unison, and turned deliberately away from one another. Jamie groaned. Another fight. Claude and Caleb always bickered and teased, but they never took it so far as to actually hurt each other. Now, it seemed like they were always furious.

The others were no better. Pippa chewed on the cords of her hoodie, her eyes locked on a crack on the sidewalk like it was the only thing holding her together. Monty clung to his Rainbow Quest lunch pail, his half-lidded eyes falling somewhere between asleep on his feet and bursting into tears. Cupcake stood away from them all with her back to the group, wearing normal jeans without her tutu and scowling like the foulest substance imaginable was lodged just under her nose.

Jamie screwed up his courage and pulled Sophie off his leg. As he approached the towering girl, he dug a book from his backpack and cleared his throat. "Hey, Cupcake?"

She growled, turning only her eyes to look at him. "What?"

Jamie gulped. "I…I noticed the other day that you were reading a book about unicorns…"

"You wanna make something of it?"

"No!" Jamie threw up his hands, holding the book out like a shield. "I-I just thought that, if you liked that one, you might want to borrow this too. It's one of my favorite about all sort of different creatures and fairies and how you can spot them even if they're hiding."

For a split second, something bright and happy flashed across Cupcake's eyes. Then the gray returned and swallowed that light, leaving her scowl deeper and blacker than before.

"Yeah, right," she said, knocking the book from his hands. "Nobody cares about that stupid kid stuff."

Jamie scrambled to catch his book, but couldn't stop it from dropping straight into a puddle. He snatched it up quick as he could, a distressed sound escaping his throat at the sight of the water-stained page. He twisted after his friend. "C-Cupcake, c'mon…"

"Let it go Jamie," said Pippa without looking up from her crack.

"Yeah," said Claude, turning as far as he could without catching sight of his brother. "Besides, she's right. We don't want to hear about your dumb imaginary friends."

Jamie deflate as the cruel words stung his heart like needle-pricks. These were not his friends. His friends would never be so mean.

"What happened to you guys?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

As usual, no one had any answers, though Jamie could make a guess. It'd been rough, these last few nights, trying to fight off the gray. Bright dreams seemed few and far between and nightmares all too common. Jamie supposed he might have fallen into a funk of his own if he hadn't known that there was something else going on, something bigger than all of them. He'd seen proof of that in the woods.

Fighting down the hurt, Jamie shook out his book to dry it and retreated back to Sophie, who stood on the very edge of the sidewalk, peering into the trees. She screwed up her face into an expression of such intense concentration that it would have been funny, if he hadn't know just how serious she was.

He lay the book on a dry patch of sidewalk and knelt to put himself on level with his sister. "See anything, Soph?"

"No." Sophie's face crumbled, her bottom lip jutting out and trembling. "No an-gee."

Jamie sighed and tried not to feel disappointed. He gave his sister a one-armed hug and patted her messy blonde hair. "Don't worry. He'll be back soon. It'll all be okay then."

He had to believe that, with all of his heart. If there was ever a time when the children of Burgess needed a guardian angel, it was now.

* * *

"That's it," muttered Jack as he sprawled across a redwood rafter beam. "I give up."

Babytooth perched on his shoulder and cooed, offering a tiny ear to his trouble but no ready solutions. As of the last sunset, nearly two hours past, Jack had been trapped in the North Pole for a full week. In that time he's scoured every available inch of the massive workshop from attic to cellar. He'd explored hallways and tunnels, searched bedrooms and work sheds, dug through storage and supplies, everything. Still, there was no sign of his staff.

Beyond the windows and skylights, the monstrous ice storms raged on, fiercer and darker than any blizzard Jack had ever seen. Even he wouldn't dare venture outside in that. The howling gales were nothing like his friend the wind and the massive hailstones they threw were not meant for fun and games.

Jack sighed, laying his bare hand on the enchanted pane of a skylight over his perch. Magic thrummed against him, reinforcing the glass and warding him against venturing further. Like every other passage to the outside world, it was sealed, but that could not stop the cold. It bit into Jack's skin like a living creature. To anyone else, it promised only pain and, if challenged, certain death.

Jack shuddered.

Babytooth cooed again and nuzzled against him, her feathers tickling his cheek. Jack warmed his hand on his jeans before stroking her head. Taking advantage of the cool and shaded perch, he stretched his limbs and rolled his shoulders, letting his muscles unwind. North and his yetis worked far below, their bustle and chatter dulled by distance. All and all, this wouldn't be a bad place for a nap…

He jerked that train of thought off the track and shook himself violently. Babytooth chirped in surprise. Jack forced himself not to worry about her. What was he thinking, relaxing in a place like this, letting his guard down like he actually belonged? That's what the Guardians wanted, to get under his skin and butter him up with creature comforts until he slipped up. He couldn't let that happen.

"There you are!"

The Tooth Fairy herself fluttered up to them from the factory floor, hovering a few feet shy of Jack's perch. It took Jack a moment to realize that her words weren't directed at him, but at Babytooth, who gave her mother and awkward smile and rubbed the back of her tiny neck.

"I should have known you'd be up here," said Toothiana with her hands on her hips. "You are supposed to be on shift, young lady."

Babytooth whined in disappointment, her feathers drooping sadly all around her face. The Queen clicked her tongue in light-hearted disapproval.

"Don't give me that. You know your assignment. The rest of the squad is waiting with Bunny and if you hold them up you'll all be behind on tonight's deadline. You have a responsibility to this uniform. Now go on. Jack will still be here when you come back."

Her utter certainty rubbed Jack all wrong. He'd never intended to stick around, it wasn't like he had a choice. Babytooth sighed, knowing when the jig was up. She pecked Jack on the cheek goodbye before circling her Queen and darting towards the floor to join her sisters.

Toothiana chuckled, landing gracefully on Jack's rafter and folding her hands over her lap.

"You know, you've nearly stolen her from me," she said, bright and teasing. "She really is inordinately fond of you. No matter how much Bunny suspected you at first she never backed down. She kept insisting that you were a good boy. Good and kind."

Jack's throat tightened with a shock of guilt. To think that the little fairy had been on his side that long…He swallowed, clearing a path for his voice.

"Oh," he said. That was pathetic. He dipped his chin onto his chest, avoiding the fairy queen's eye. "Did she, uh. Did she tell you how we met?"

"You mean, did she tell me that you stole Jamie Bennett's second lateral incisor?" Toothiana batted her translucent purple eyelashes. The giggle that followed bore neither judgment nor condemnation. "Yes, she did. And she also told me that you took good care of it. You didn't hurt it the way that Pitch would have. You even gave Jamie his coin."

Jack shrugged, peering at her through only the corner of his eye. "It was a fair trade."

Toothiana nodded. If you'd told Jack a week ago that the fierce Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies could be this gentle and understanding off the battlefield, he never would have believed it. Yet he'd seen her so often chattering with Babytooth and her sisters when she had no reason to put up a front that Jack couldn't help but feel that this side of her was as genuine and true as the wild warrior queen.

She shifted a few inches closer to him and leaned in, lowering her voice to a gentle, understanding whisper. "The only thing she didn't know – couldn't know – is why you took it. It wasn't for Pitch. You had plenty of chance to give it to him but didn't. So why?"

Jack's cheeks frosted with a frozen blush. He wiped the ice on his sleeve only for it to reform a moment later. "I, um…" _I was stupid. It was a stupid reason. I should have given it to Pitch…_ "I wanted to, um. See the memory it had. But I couldn't get it out."

Toothiana straightened with a regal nod, ruffling her feathers as she hovered over the beam. "I see," she said. "You couldn't get it out because it wasn't yours to take. The power to unlock others' memories is unique to me and my girls. It's old magic passed down from my mother."

Though her eyes remained bright, they grew momentarily unfocused and wistful, thinking of times long past. A bit of this lingered as she hovered at Jack's side. "Though, there are other techniques, you know."

Jack blinked at her. "Techniques for…?"

"Reminiscing. I'm the Guardian of Memories. I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve." She did not puff out her chest in pride as Babytooth might have, but the confident set of her shoulders and toss of her head achieved a similar effect. "You really care about Jamie, don't you?"

Again, Jack shrugged. He didn't entirely follow her train of thought, but the question was innocent enough. "I knew his mom. Sort've. The family's lived in that town for ages. She moved for a bit, then came back with Jamie and Soph and…I've just always felt they were worth watching."

"So you've been watching over them." Somehow, Tooth seemed as proud of that as she would have been of her own girls. Then she sobered, the wistfulness in her eyes coming to the forefront. "But they don't know, do they? Even they can't see you. They don't believe."

Jack didn't answer. He didn't have to. Toothiana shifted closer, hovering just over his feet. "I can't show you Jamie's memory. But if you like, I could show you one of your own."

Jack's brow furled. "One of mine?"

"From your childhood," explained Tooth, giving his hand a squeeze. "It's so hard to grasp old memories on your own. They turn slippery and fragile. You try to hold on and they just fragment, slipping away. But I can help you bring them back as clear as the day they were made."

Jack tugged his hand out of her grip. "No," he said. "You can't."

The queen's purple eyelashes fluttered in shock. She grasped her hand to her chest and quirked her head questioningly.

"I don't have any memories like that," said Jack, pulling away to avoid her pity. "I didn't have a childhood."

Toothiana looked aghast, as though the thought hadn't occurred to her. Her eyes darted around the room and her feathers bristled in agitation. "But…that I can't be. I'm certain that I saw…" She suddenly lunged, grasping for Jack's jaw. "Let me see your teeth!"

"Whu–?!"

"It'll only take a moment." Deceptively delicate fingers forced their way into Jack's mouth, folding back the lips and prying open his jaw. She ran the pads of her pointer fingers along his teeth, counting under her breath as she traced their shape.

"...twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one – I knew it!" Tooth pushed her fingers all the way to the back of Jack's mouth, pressing down on the empty space at the very rear of his jaw. "There. Do you feel that?"

"Fweel whu?" asked Jack, his tongue depressed by the rest of her hand.

"That. There." Tooth pressed her fingers into the gums once more before setting him loose, her hands flitting out of his mouth as quick as they'd arrived. "Those are you wisdom teeth, your third molars. They're only partially grown in, barely breaching the gum-line, and they haven't moved in centuries, but they're there."

Jack frowned, rubbing his jaw. "So what?"

The Tooth Fairy fidgeted, her busy little fingers stumbling over each other as she tried to collect her thoughts. She forced herself to settle, alighting briefly on the rafter before the explanation spilled out.

"Immortality is different for everyone. Some creatures have it in their nature, like Sandy. They're born fully formed and never change. Others are like Bunny, recycling themselves every few centuries and starting new with fresh lives. Still others are like North, constantly aging but never allowing time to steal their strength or power. The magic they tap into keeps them alive.

"For you, Jack…it's like you're frozen in time." She brushed a bit of hair from his eyes and tucked it over his left ear. "You don't change, you don't grow old. You just…stopped. But that's not how you always were. The wisdom teeth are proof, you grew like a normal human for at least sixteen years. You had a life before this, before Jack Frost. You had a childhood."

She stared at him intently, her fingers lingering near his ear. Jack stared back, dumbstruck. It couldn't actually be true.

"You really don't remember?" Tooth asked, sounding pained.

Jack shook his head. Tooth made a distressed sound that reminded him very much of her smaller self. She hesitated, holding out her hands for permission to touch him. "May I try something?"

When Jack didn't pull away, she lay her fingertips along his temples. She leaned forward, pressed their foreheads together, and momentarily covered his whole field of vision. Then she whispered, "Close your eyes."

Jack did as he was told. He felt warmth between her fingers and his skull as her magic passed between them. It sparked against his skin like static electricity, and then…

Darkness. It was dark, and it was cold, the kind of cold that bit straight down into the bone and held on like rabid beast. He tried to move, to push away, but his limbs would not respond. HE sank like a stone.

"Think, Jack," said Toothiana's voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "This is your earliest memory. What do you see?"

"…Darkness." Jack was certain that his mouth did not move and his throat did not open, but his voice spoke anyway, answering the Fairy Queen.

"What kind of darkness?"

"Cold." Jack took a shuddering breath, his lungs begging for air even as they refused to move. "It's dark and cold and…I'm scared…"

"Concentrate, Jack. Where are you? What are you doing?"

His eyes hung half-open. He peered into the darkness, trying to find something else, anything else. Nothing. He was alone.

"I'm floating. I don't know where I am. There isn't anything else." His lungs screamed. "I can't breathe."

"Shuuuush, Jack. It's okay. You're okay. Just keep going. What happened next?"

The darkness trembled, a low pulse rumbling from somewhere far away. Jack felt something grasp his body, guiding him gently up through the shadows. A light broke through the distant surface and wrapped around him, cool and comforting.

"I saw a light."

"Good," whispered Tooth. "What kind of light?"

"I…I don't know. Soft, I guess. White. Kind of…fuzzy." And familiar. He knew this light, had felt it before, as though it were a part of who he was.

"And then?" prompted the fairy queen.

Then, he felt the light draw him up through the bitter darkness. As it grew stronger, it seemed to chase the shadows away, revealing bubbles, the murky depths of water, and…

"Ice. There was ice, when the light pulled me out. It broke. I passed through, and then I saw the…"

Pain, hard and sudden as a nightmare's kick, knocked him out of the memory. Jack jerked away with a groan of pain, pressing against the wood. Toothiana immediately backed off, fluttering on her wings to give him the space he needed.

"It's all right Jack," she said, her hands raised to show that she was no threat. "You're all right, everything's okay. We're done."

Jack winced, rubbing his temple. He could still feel the remnants of a spark as her magic faded, bringing him back to the present. He bit his lip and didn't say anything until the pressure had eased and his mind had cleared.

"That wasn't childhood," he finally muttered.

Toothiana shook her head. "No. It wasn't."

Jack sighed and leaned against the ceiling. "It told you. I didn't have one."

Again, Toothiana shook her head. She closed the gap between them and took his hand. "You can't reach the memories. That doesn't mean they don't exist." She held his hand in both of her own, massaging the joints to offer what comfort she could. "I told you, it's hard to grasp the older ones. Sometimes you need extra help, especially if there's something else keeping them at bay."

She sighed, releasing his hand and laying hers on his shoulder. "I wish I'd known sooner. I could have helped you. I'm sure of it. I'd just have to find your teeth. But with everything that's happened…"

Jack's throat tightened. He hadn't allowed himself to think about the fate of the many teeth in Pitch's possession. He knew they were being put to good use and it was necessary for the plan to succeed, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it went too far. That it was wrong.

He shrugged off the Tooth Fairy's hand. It was worth it, it had to be. He couldn't afford to doubt Pitch. He had to believe.

Think of something else. Anything else.

"Can I ask you something?"

Toothiana quirked her head invitingly. "Of course."

"What do you know about grown-ups and fear?"

The fairy queen blinked, unspoken questions of his meaning and motivation clear in her eyes. Jack turned his head, staring deliberately out the window at the raging storm. "The rabbit said that fear makes grown-ups do 'awful things,' but wouldn't elaborate on what. He said that you could tell it better."

Understanding passed across the violet eyes. Toothiana made a thoughtful noise, setting back on their shared perch. "Well…I suppose he might be right about that. I do know a few things."

She turned from him, her gaze drifting off into the past. For the first time, her body went completely still, her wings folding down against her back. She went quiet for a bit, deciding where to begin. Once she'd figured that out, she sighed.

"When I was a child, long before I was Chosen, I knew many adults who were afraid. Very, very afraid."

Jack shifted, leaning forward to better hear her quiet tone. "Afraid of what?" he asked.

"Afraid of me."

Jack stared. He couldn't wrap his mind around this beautiful, mothering creature as something to fear, especially not as a child. Sure, he knew that beneath those pretty feathers she was a master warrior, worthy of Pitch's consideration as a genuine threat on the battlefield, but embodying a creature of fear? He couldn't see it. She was too…colorful.

As though reading his mind, Toothiana smiled wistfully. "I wasn't born like this, Jack. I'm like you. I grew up a normal little girl in a normal village, with normal friends and a normal family. But my mother was actually a creature called a Sister of Flight. I never knew, because she gave up her wings to be with my father…a human.

"None of the villages knew either. None of them ever would have, if it hadn't been for me." She sighed, rolling her shoulders and stretching the deceptively delicate wings, which twitched as though craving to take flight. "On the day I lost my last baby tooth, everything changed. That's when my wings grew in. The other children thought they were beautiful, especially when I learned to fly. But the adults in my village were afraid. The thought I might be some kind of demon.

"An evil creature, an enemy of family's, fanned their fears like a flame. Soon they were consumed by their terror. They tried to run us out, lock me up. My family fled into the forest, and in the resulting chase, my parents were killed. All because the village was afraid."

Guilt closed over Jack's heart, even though he knew that he had no part in the long-ago murders. He picked through his conflicting emotions, settled on the least-complicated, and muttered, "I'm sorry."

"It was a very long time ago," said Tooth, her smile more for his benefit than anything else. "Besides, they've always been with me, through my memories. They kept my baby teeth safe and sound so I'd always be able to remember them. That's why I learned to collect the teeth of children, so none of them would ever have to forget what's important."

"Oh," said Jack, scratching his cheek. "So I guess that means you don't plant anything, huh?"

"Plant?" Tooth's smile lit up. "Did Bunny use a gardening metaphor to explain his job?" Jack nodded and the Tooth Fairy laughed, taking flight again. "That is _so_ like him, the silly old rabbit. He could shed his skin a dozen times and never really change."

She buzzed a few loops around the rafter, all traces of her wistful melancholy evaporating away. Despite himself, Jack grinned. There was something pleasant about seeing a fairy in flight, like she and her progeny belonged in the air, to the air, as he did. Perhaps that was the blood of her 'Sisters of Flight.' It carried the same joy as watching kids play in the snow.

As though sensing his admiration, the Tooth Fairy returned to his side, hovering blithely in the space next to his perch. "Would it be all right if I ask you something now?"

Jack shrugged. "All right. Shoot."

Toothiana drummed her fingers anxiously. "Did you…while you were living with him, did you ever ask Pitch about your past?"

Jack frowned. "Once or twice," he said slowly. He could count four or five times off the top of his head, but it'd never been all that important. Just curiosities.

"And what did he tell you?" asked Tooth, ever earnest in her questioning.

Each time Jack asked about his past, Pitch had responded with the same question: _What do you remember?_ When he'd answered that there was only night and lonely clouds and Pitch, the Nightmare King would declare that to be all he needed, and the subject would drop.

"He didn't tell me anything."

Toothiana's gem-bright eyes dulled with pity and concern. "He kept your past from you…"

"No," Jack snapped, all the walls he'd brought down leaping back up in an instant. He should've known this whole thing was just another trick.

"Jack, please, you need to –"

"I don't 'need' to do anything." With a huff, Jack shoved himself off the rafter and dropped to into the open air. It took twenty feet and Toothiana's cry of alarm for him to remember that, without his staff, he had no way to control his fall and no wind to catch him.

Luckily, at that moment, the Sandman and Easter Bunny appeared in the workshop from their nightly rounds. At the Tooth Fairy's cry, they and North – who'd been going between his massive List and a stack of worn books for the better part of five hours – looked up. A second later, a chute of golden sand scooped Jack from the air, guiding him safely to the factory floor.

Jack landed with a huff, shaking the dream-sand from his shoulders and hair. The three grounded Guardians closed in, but he ignored them, storming for his designated room. Before he'd made it seven steps, the frantic fairy cut him off, stumbling over herself to backtrack wildly.

"Jack, please," she said. "If you would just listen…"

"'Just listen'?" Jack echoed. "All I've done since I've gotten here is listen. I've listened to you, I've listened to him, I've listened to the rabbit. The only one who hasn't tried to talk my ear off is _Sandman_."

Sandy held up both palms as if to say, 'What can you do?' He seemed the calmest out of the four, which somehow made Jack even more annoyed. All this fretting and concern from the other three, what did they think he was, fragile?

Toothiana moved as though to take his shoulder again. He stepped back to dodge her hand. "No! What do you expect me to do, huh? Break down, open up, start crying? I'm not _that_ weak!"

"We never assumed you were," said North reasonably, stepping from the workbench he'd occupied all day. "We know that you have more strength than you are letting on."

Jack groaned, raking a hand through his hair. For the hundredth time, he wished for his staff, if only so its familiar weight might give him a little grounding in this uncertain sea. "No, you don't. You don't know me. And you don't know Pitch."

"That's where you're wrong, mate." The Easter Bunny lounged against the door to the hall, deceptively relaxed but actually placing himself between Jack and the exit. "We know Pitch better than anybody. We know where he came from, how he thinks and what he's like. He threw out anything good about him back in the Dark Ages."

Jack grit his teeth. "You're wrong."

"It's true," insisted Tooth, still hovering around Sandman and St. North as though the floor would burn her if she landed. "He had a part, once, that was human. It understood mercy and pity and real love, but he gave it up. Centuries ago. He _chose_ to throw it away, called it his weakness. Now, even if he finds something to care for, he just –"

She hesitated, struggling for the words even with all the languages of the world at her disposal. Sandman pitched in where he could, offering up a storm cloud, a broken heart, and an elephant of all things.

Toothiana took a deep breath to steel her resolve before starting again. "There are people out there, humans and spirits both, who can turn even love into something ugly and hurtful. Pitch is one of those people. Can't you see that? All this time, he's been hurting you."

"I'm not listening." Jack screwed up his face and covered his ears. A childish defense to be sure, but what other choice did he have? "You don't know anything, you don't understand."

"We saw him hit you, kid," said the Easter Bunny, raising his voice to be heard over the attempts to block him out. "You really think he'd beat you that bad if he actually cared?"

Jack tightened his jaw and sealed his hands more tightly over his ears. The punishment had a point, he'd broken the rules. If Pitch hadn't put him right someone else would have, and it would have been worse. Pitch never hurt him enough that he couldn't heal. He wasn't listening, wasn't listening…

"Jack."

North's voice broke through the private litany, strong, but neither stern nor harsh. He grasped Jack's arm at the wrist with the same controlled strength, gently pulling the hand from the boy's ear.

"I have found something that you should see," he said, in a lower tone than Bunny's shouts. "Walk with me."

He released Jack's arm and returned to his workbench, not forcing the boy to follow. Jack hesitated until his curiosity got the better of him. He drifted over, peering over North's elbow at the ancient book. The old toymaker leafed through the pages until he found what he was looking for and stepped back to give Jack a clear view of the tome. "I trust these markings look familiar?"

Jack scanned the series of hash-marks and twisted script. It took a second look for him to recognize them. His hands immediately went to his iron bonds, tracing identical runes along the bracelet's edge.

"Many centuries ago, Pitch stole a copy of this tome from the archives of my mentor. Ever since, he has used these spells to further his own ends."

Jack frowned, his fingers lingering on the iron. Pitch knew magic, lots of it. That wasn't news. "So what?"

In answer, North closed the book, turning its cover so Jack could clearly see the title. It read, _Spells of Enslavement_.

Jack felt his heart sink straight to the bottom of his lungs. He forced himself to breathe, clutching his right wrist and the bond it bore close to his chest. It wasn't possible, this wasn't real, it wasn't true, it was a lie…

"That particular series of enchantments," continued North, "form a potent combination that cannot be easily removed. It creates a bond between the chain's master and their captive –"

"It's for _protection_."

"– which allows for consistent transference of magic from the subject to the master." North raised his voice slightly to be heard over Jack's protest, drowning it out. He sighed and lowered the tone again when it was clear that he would not be interrupted. "Do you understand what that means, Jack?"

Bunny answered before the boy had a chance, his fur bristling with anger. "It means that drongo's been draining your magic and stealing it for himself."

Jack shook his head, clinging to the iron bracelets like a lifeline. "It's a mistake."

"It's no mistake, kid." The Easter Bunny crossed the room in two long strides, ignoring Sandy's attempts to call him off. "Open yer damn eyes. You're not a person to him, you're a thing, something he owns. At best you're a pet. At worst? You're a _battery_."

Jack went rigid. Even without his staff, the temperature around him dropped like a stone. "He wanted me safe."

"He wanted you controlled."

"_No_." A half-full mug of cocoa on the desk crackled as ice spread over its surface. "Pitch cares about me, he's the only one who ever cared…"

"And I'll bet he made sure of that," said Bunny with a humorless laugh. He kept the desk between him and Jack to allow the boy some cover, but hunched over it with his ears pressed against his skull. "Kept you under lock and key, didn't he? Only let you out when there was nobody around to see, kept you too terrified to talk to the kids or to spirits or anyone besides him. He made sure you never had anyone else to turn to so you'd never figure out what he was doing, keeping you locked up like a slave."

"Bunny," North warned. Jack had backed away from the desk, but the chocolate was now frozen solid and the immediate area's temperature dropped so far that Sandy began to shiver. Bunny's whiskers twitched in protest to the cold. He backed off, allowing the buzzing Tooth Fairy to hover in his place.

"Jack," she said gently. "I know this must be hard to accept, but…"

"Just. Stop."

Jack's heart pounded in his ears. He panted, trying to keep his breathing under control, but there was too much information. He couldn't think straight.

"This is a trick," he said, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. "It was always a trick, all of it. You're lying."

"Jack…"

"You're _lying!_"

He bolted, breaking past the Sandman, who made no move to stop him. Toothiana called his name but was held from pursuit by St. North, who shook his head as he advised her to hold back. Jack couldn't see the Easter Bunny in his flight, and he didn't bother glancing back for a better look.

He sprinted through the Pole, dodging yetis and elves alike until he bounded into the designated room. He slammed the door behind him, locked it tight and, for extra measure, shoved the linen chest in front of it to barricade it further. If they'd lied about everything else, they probably lied about the key too. It was all a trick to gain his trust.

The little room was still too bright, its magic lights beaming at the ceiling. Jack threw open the wardrobe, shoved some of the heavy coats aside, and climbed in, pulling the door to behind him. He huddled in the darkness, clutching the iron bracelets. Bonds, not chains. Protection, not slavery. He couldn't let the lies get to him. He couldn't.

In the darkness of his thoughts, he didn't notice the thin, spidery cracks that had begun to spread over the manacles' surface. They were too shallow to be felt, barely scratches in the polished sheen. But they were there.


End file.
